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THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 


THE 
AIMS  OF  LABOUR 


BY  THE   RT.    HON. 

ARTHUR  HENDERSON,  M.P., 
Secretary  of  the  Labour  Party 


SECOND  EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

MCMXVIII 


HP 
Hi 


These  things  sh^l  oe!  a  loftier  race 

Than  ere  the  world  hath  known  shall  rise 

With  flame  of  freedom  in  their  souls, 
And  light  of  knowledge  in  their  eyes. 

They  shall  be  gentle,  brave,  and  strong 

To  spill  no  drop  of  blood,  but  dare 
All  that  may  plant  man's  lordship  firm 

On  earth,  and  fire,  and  sea,  and  air. 

Nation  with  nation,  land  with  land, 
Inarmed  shall  live  as  comrades  free: 

In  every  heart  and  brain  shall  throb 
The  pulse  of  one  fraternity. 

New  arts  shall  bloom  of  loftier  mould 

And  mightier  music  fill  the  skies, 
And  every  life  shall  be  a  song, 

When  all  the  earth  is  paradise. 

John  Addington  Symonds. 


PREFACE 

In  presenting  this  little  volume  to  the  public  no 
pretence  is  made  that  it  is  a  complete  or  comprehen- 
sive statement  of  the  aims  of  British  Labour,  nor 
is  it  an  attempt  to  write  a  book  on  Labour  Politics. 
The  main  substance  of  several  of  the  chapters  has 
already  appeared  in  the  form  of  articles  published 
during  the  past  two  months.  When  it  was  sug- 
gested that  I  should  issue  them  as  a  collection  of 
chapters  dealing  with  some  of  the  vital  problems 
now  confronting  the  democratic  forces  of  this  coun- 
try, I  agreed  to  do  so;  and  now  I  offer  them,  together 
with  two  or  three  new  chapters,  to  my  prospective 
readers  in  the  hope  that  they  may  prove  to  be  of  some 
little  help  to  them  in  forming  their  own  views  on  the 
questions  which  are  discussed  herein. 

The  sole  purpose  of  this  publication  is  to  advance 
the  social  and  political  ideals  which  I  have  at  heart, 
and  I  propose  to  hand  over  any  profits  resulting 
from  the  sale  of  the  book  to  the  fund  which  the 
Labour  Party  is  promoting  with  a  view  to  erecting  a 
suitable  and  lasting  Memorial  to  the  honour  of  those 


PREFACE 

who  have  fallen  on  the  field  of  battle  in  furtherance 
of  the  ideals  and  aims  which  inspire  British  Democ- 
racy and  on  behalf  of  which  British  Labour  has  sac- 
rificed so  much  and  so  freely. 

A.  H. 
December  22nd,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  ^^^n 

I  The  Political  Labour  Movement     ...  9 

II  The  New  Party  and  Its  Programme     .     .  19 

III  Solidarity 31 

IV  World  Security  .....     ...     .     .     ..     .•  40 

V    A  People's  Peace 48 

VI  No  Economic  Boycott 55 

VII  Revolution  or  Compromise?    .     .     .     •     •     67 

VIII  Freedom .75 

IX  Victory ^^ 


X    The  Spirit  of  Democracy 


92 


Appendices: 

I    Inter-Allied  Labour  War  Aims  ....     99 
II    Labour  and  the  New  Social  Order  .     .     .111 


THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  POLITICAL  LABOUR  MOVEMENT 

With  the  coming  of  peace  the  world  will  enter  upon 
an  era  of  revolutionary  change  to  which  there  is  no 
parallel  in  history.  In  this  country,  as  in  every 
other,  the  war  has  already  profoundly  modified  the 
economic  system  of  pre-war  days,  and  has  intro- 
duced far-reaching  innovations  into  industry. 
Methods  of  State  control  which  would  once  have 
been  regarded  as  intolerable  infringements  of  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  both  employers  and  workmen 
have  been  accepted  without  effective  protest  even 
from  those  bred  in  the  individualist  tradition  of  the 
last  century.  Some  of  these  changes  are  admittedly 
only  temporary  and  provisional.  They  were  dic- 
tated- by  national  necessity,  and  were  introduced 
upon  the  explicit  understanding  that  an  unprece- 
dented situation  had  arisen  which  called  for  bold 
and  drastic  measures.  Those  measures  which  relate 
to  trade  union  practices  and  customs  in  the  work- 

9 


10  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

shops,  in  particular,  are  governed  by  strict  pledges 
for  the  restoration  of  pre-war  conditions  when  the 
national  crisis  is  over.  Nevertheless,  the  extent  and 
importance  of  these  changes  in  methods  of  produc- 
tion, the  control  of  industry,  the  management  and 
distribution  of  labour,  and  the  limitations  imposed 
upon  the  activities  of  financiers  and  the  enterprises 
of  individual  capitalists,  practically  involve  a  revo- 
lution, the  effects  of  which  will  remain  when  the  ne- 
cessity which  gave  them  their  sanction  has  passed 
away.  Most  of  them  are  permanent.  In  four 
crowded  and  eventful  years  we  have  gathered  the 
fruits  of  a  century  of  economic  evolution.  We  have 
entered  upon  a  new  world.  With  the  main  features 
of  this  new  world  we  are  still  unfamiliar.  We  can- 
not yet  begin  to  measure  the  material  effects  of  the 
war  upon  the  commercial  and  industrial  system 
upon  which  our  civilisation  has  been  based. 

Still  less  can  we  estimate  the  results  of  the  inner 
revolution  of  thought  and  feeling  which  has  accom- 
panied these  material  changes.  Yet  we  are  begin- 
ning dimly  to  see  that  the  old  order  of  society  has 
dissolved.  A  new  social  order  is  taking  shape  even 
in  the  midst  of  the  stress  and  peril  of  the  time. 
This  revolution  is  fundamental,  for  it  touches  the 
springs  of  action  in  the  great  mass  of  the  common 
people.     Greater  changes  in  the  material  structure 


POLITICAL  LABOUR  MOVEMENT     11 

of  society  have  still  to  come,  but  they  will  be  dic- 
tated not  by  the  exigencies  of  war  but  by  the  new 
democratic  consciousness  and  the*  new  social  con- 
science which  have  come  to  birth  in  the  long  agony 
of  the  present  struggle.  The  people  have  been 
taught  by  events,  better  than  by  any  process  of  ra- 
tional argument,  that  they  alone  make  war  possible, 
though  they  have  no  hand  in  fashioning  the  policies 
that  lead  to  war:  their  energy,  devotion,  and  sacri- 
fice, in  trench,  field  and  factory,  are  qualities  which 
their  rulers  exploit  when  they  quarrel  with  one  an- 
other. In  times  of  peace  the  people  feel  that  they 
are  nothing;  when  war  comes  they  are  found  to  be 
everything.  War  is  possible  only  because  the  skill 
and  bravery  of  the  common  people,  their  immense 
industry,  their  patient  endurance,  their  direct  and 
simple  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  give  the  world's 
rulers  a  feeling  of  power  which  they  use,  not  to  en- 
sure the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the  multitudes 
of  humble  folk,  but  to  glorify  their  own  names  and 
to  feed  their  insensate  ambitions.  The  people  have 
discovered  this,  and  in  learning  it  they  have  discov- 
ered their  own  power.  Never  again,  we  may  be 
sure,  will  the  people  allow  themselves  to  be  driven 
helplessly  into  war  by  these  sinister  forces.  Neither 
will  they  be  able  henceforth  to  see  as  enemies  the 
people  of  other  countries  who  are  like  themselves  the 


12  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

victims   of  the  militarist   imperialism   and   secret 
diplomacy  of  their  rulers. 

Internationalism,  as  an  organised  movement,  may 
have  temporarily  broken  down  in  this  war.  But  the 
spirit  of  internationalism,  the  consciousness  of  the 
solidarity  of  peoples,  the  democratic  vision  which 
overlooks  the  artificial  frontiers  which  keep  the 
peoples  apart,  will  grow  stronger  the  longer  the 
war  continues.  In  the  midst  of  the  universal  horror 
of  the  battlefield  something  like  an  entente  of  the 
peoples  has  been  established.  The  democracies  of 
the  world  begin  to  understand  one  another.  Some 
of  the  old  misunderstandings  and  prejudices,  inten- 
sified by  the  bitterness  of  the  present  mad  struggle, 
may  flourish  for  some  time  after  the  war.  Old  jeal- 
ousies die  hard,  new  hatreds  have  been  born,  human 
nature  is  human  nature  still.  But  beneath  these  un- 
natural enmities,  transcending  the  passionate  antag- 
onisms of  the  hour,  new  forces  of  fraternity  and  good 
will  are  at  work,  reconciling  the  sundered  peoples 
and  making  a  covenanted  peace  possible  between 
them,  more  durable  than  the  treaty  peace  that  the 
official  diplomacy  will  presently  conclude.  In  every 
belligerent  country  these  healing  and  unifying 
forces  have  been  released.  Nowhere — not  even  in 
Russia — are  they  yet  dominant:  but  the  democratic 
spirit   is   permeating   every   country.     Democratic 


POLITICAL  LABOUR  MOVEMENT     13 

conceptions  are  influencing  the  thought  of  every 
people,  who  see  the  war  as  the  last  monstrous  prod- 
uct of  the  economic  and  social  inequalities  of  the  old 
order  of  existence  which  dissolves  and  passes  away 
like  an  evil  dream  of  the  night. 

Equality  is  the  great  human  formula  of  the  com- 
ing'era  of  revolutionary  change.  We  are  moving 
swiftly  towards  a  new  order  of  society  in  which  the 
idea  of  equality  will  govern  the  political  thinking  of 
all  the  democracies.  The  freedom  and  fraternity  of 
which  men  have  dreamed,  which  we  desire  to  see 
established  in  this  country  and  extended  to  every 
other,  so  that  there  may  be  no  more  wars,  are  rooted 
in  equality.  It  is  not  a  new  conception.  It  has  in- 
spired democratic  action  since  democracy  first  took 
shape  as  an  organised  movement.  It  has  been  the 
aim  of  trade  unionism  from  its  earliest  beginnings, 
though  it  may  not  have  been  consciously  formulated. 
It  is  the  aspiration  of  political  democracy.  The  war 
has  quickened  it  afresh  and  has  invested  it  with  a 
new  significance.  Failure  to  appreciate  the  fact 
that  the  minds  of  the  people  have  been  deeply  influ- 
enced by  equalitarian  ideals,  to  under-estimate  the 
popular  resentment  of  class  privileges,  whether 
based  on  the  accident  of  birth  or  upon  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  which  the  war  has  strengthened 
rather  than  mitigated,  will  be  fatal  in  the  future  to 


14  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

governments  and  political  parties  alike.  These  are 
the  conceptions  which  will  determine  the  politics  of 
the  future.  Where  does  the  Labour  Party  stand  in 
relation  to  them  and  to  the  vast  range  of  problems, 
international  and  national,  political,  social,  and  eco- 
nomic, the  solution  of  which  will  be  conditioned  by 
them?  Is  the  Labour  movement  so  organised  and 
equipped  as  to  qualify  it  to  interpret  and  direct  the 
new  consciousness  of  democracy  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  not  difficult.  An 
examination  of  the  present  position  of  the  political 
Labour  movement  will  suffice  to  show  that  its  form 
of  organisation  must  be  completely  changed  if  it  is 
to  be  enabled  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  new  sit- 
uation. It  is  a  fact  of  enormous  importance  that 
the  development  of  democratic  ideals  and  purposes 
synchronises  with  the  introduction  of  a  franchise 
measure  which  opens  a  tremendous  vista  of  political 
achievement.  When  the  new  Act  comes  into  opera- 
tion it  is  estimated  that  the  number  of  voters  will  be 
increased  by  2,000,000  men  and  6,000,000  women 
— a  million  of  the  latter  being  unmarried  women — 
making  a  total  of  sixteen  and  a  quarter  million 
electors.  These  figures  do  not  represent  the  actual 
improvement  in  the  position  of  political  democracy 
brought  about  by  the  Reform  Bill,  for  many  regis- 
tration anomalies  and  disqualifications  are  removed, 


POLITICAL  LABOUR  MOVEMENT     15 

and  thus  a  considerable  increase  in  the  number  of 
electors  on  the  "live"  register  able  to  take  part  in 
elections  may  be  anticipated.  To  meet  this  great 
change  in  the  character  of  the  electorate  and  to  take 
full  advantage  of  the  re-distribution  of  political 
power  our  present  form  of  organisation  is  plainly 
inadequate. 

Measured  by  the  extended  history  of  trade  imion 
organisations  in  this  country,  the  political  Labour 
movement  is  of  very  recent  origin.  This  year  the 
Trade  Union  Congress  celebrates  its  jubilee.  As  a 
distinct  and  separate  group  in  Parliament  the  La- 
bour Party,  on  the  other  hand,  has  not  yet  attained 
its  majority.  It  was  the  activity  of  the  Socialist 
pioneers  in  this  country  which  supplied  the  final 
impulse  to  political  action  on  the  part  of  the  organ- 
ised working  class  movement.  It  is  true  that  after 
the  passing  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1868,  which  en- 
franchised the  workmen  in  the  boroughs,  a  move- 
ment was  started  to  secure  the  return  of  trade  union- 
ist members  to  Parliament.  In  1874  fourteen  can- 
didates went  to  the  poll,  but  only  two  were  returned, 
including  the  Right  Hon.  Thomas  Burt,  M.P.,  the 
present  father  of  the  House.  In  1880  the  number 
was  increased  to  three;  in  1885  to  eleven;  in  1892 
to  fourteen;  but  in  1895  the  number  was  reduced 
to  twelve.     The  conjunction  of  the  socialist  and  the 


16  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

industrial  movements,  however,  caused  the  pace  to 
quicken.  Alone,  the  Socialist  propagandists  seemed 
to  be  condemned  to  political  futility.  In  1885,  for 
example,  the  old  Social  Democratic  Federation  ran 
two  candidates — one  at  Kennington  and  the  other  at 
Hampstead:  the  candidate  at  Kennington  received 
thirty-two  votes,  the  candidate  at  Hampstead  polled 
twenty-nine.  The  foundation  of  the  Independent 
Labour  party  in  1893,  as  a  result  of  the  propaganda 
of  the  Fabians  and  the  old  S.D.F.,  prepared  the 
ground  for  the  decision  of  the  Trade  Union  Congress 
in  1899,  when  a  resolution  was  adopted  directing  the 
Parliamentary  Committee  to  arrange  a  conference  of 
the  trade  unions  and  the  socialist  societies  "to  de- 
vise ways  and  means  of  securing  an  increased  num- 
ber of  Labour  members  in  Parliament."  A  year 
later  the  Labour  Representation  Committee  was 
formed,  and  a  distinct  Labour  Group  came  into  ex- 
istence in  Parliament,  on  independent  lines,  with  its 
own  whips  and  its  own  policy. 

The  form  of  organisation  adopted  indicates  quite 
clearly  that  at  that  time  the  creation  of  a  national 
party  was  not  contemplated.  What  was  then 
formed  was  a  separate  group,  not  a  democratic  polit- 
ical party  capable  of  challenging  the  two  historic 
parties  on  their  own  ground.  After  the  special  con- 
ference of  1899,  the  Labour  Party  took  shape  as 


POLITICAL  LABOUR  MOVEMENT     17 

a  federation  of  trade  unions,  socialist  societies, 
trades  councils  and  local  labour  parties,  and  co- 
operative societies.  It  was  not  until  1903  that  the 
Candidates  of  the  Labour  Representation  Commit- 
tee obtained  any  notable  success  at  the  polls.  Be- 
tween the  General  Elections  of  1900  and  1906  three 
remarkable  victories  were  obtained:  Mr.  (now  Sir 
David)  Shackleton  was  returned  unopposed  for 
Clitheroe ;  Mr.  Will  Crooks  won  Woolwich  from  the 
Unionist  party;  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  beating 
both  the  Tory  and  Liberal  candidates  at  Barnard 
Castle.  In  1906  the  party  promoted  fifty  candida- 
tures at  the  General  Election  and  twenty-nine  of 
them  were  successful  at  the  polls;  in  January,  1910, 
seventy-eight  candidates  ran  under  the  auspices  of 
the  party,  and  forty  were  returned ;  at  the  last  Gen- 
eral Election,  in  December,  1910,  fifty-six  candi- 
dates were  nominated,  and  forty-two  returned.  In 
Parliament  these  members  formed  a  separate  and  in- 
dependent group.  But  they  were  not  a  party,  in  the 
accepted  sense  of  the  word,  and  some  of  them  had 
not  shaken  off  their  allegiance  to  the  historic  parties. 
In  the  country,  though  we  maintained  our  own  elec- 
toral machinery  and  our  own  staff  of  organisers, 
the  organisation  was  essentially  a  federation  of  local 
and  national  societies.  When  the  war  came  it  was 
made  clear  that  this  form  of  organisation  had  ele- 


18  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

ments  of  weakness  which  the  less  serious  stresses  of 
peace  times  had  not  revealed.  As  the  war  wore 
on,  and  the  democratic  will  became  stronger,  we 
were  led  to  see  that  if  Labour  is  to  take  its  part  in 
creating  the  new  order  of  society  it  must  address 
itself  to  the  task  of  transforming  its  political  organ- 
isation from  a  federation  of  societies  into  a  national 
popular  party,  rooted  in  the  life  of  the  democracy, 
and  deriving  its  principles  and  its  policy  from  the 
new  political  consciousness. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  NEW  PARTY  AND  ITS  PROGRAMME 

When  the  war  ends  the  Labour  Party,  like  every 
other,  will  be  confronted  with  an  unprecedented 
political  situation.  No  comparison  can  be  made 
between  this  situation  and  any  that  has  arisen  out  of 
previous  wars.  The  post-Napoleonic  period,  fol- 
lowing the  wars  in  which  this  country  was  involved 
for  twenty  years,  provides  the  nearest  parallel ;  but 
in  every  essential  particular  Labour  stands  to-day, 
both  in  relation  to  world-politics  and  to  national 
affairs,  on  an  altogether  different  footing  from  that 
of  a  century  ago.  The  Trade  Union  movement  was 
then  strangled  by  laws  which  made  the  combina- 
tion of  workmen,  even  for  purposes  of  self-protec- 
tion, illegal.  Democracy  was  rendered  abortive  by 
a  scandalously  restricted  franchise  which  concen- 
trated political  power  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the 
landed  aristocracy.  Social  conditions  were  atro- 
cious. The  people  were  the  prey  of  the  profiteering 
classes,  who  waxed  rich  out  of  the  sufferings  and 
privations  of  the  poor. 

19 


20  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

A  generation  of  political  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
people  brought  an  extension  of  the  franchise  to  the 
commercial  and  the  middle  classes,  but  added  noth- 
ing to  the  power  of  democracy  except  the  right  to 
combine  in  Trade  Unions  for  certain  limited  pur- 
poses, and  the  privilege  of  "collective  bargaining" 
with  the  employers.  Everywhere  the  workers  were 
in  revolt  against  the  intolerable  conditions  under 
which  they  were  compelled  to  live  and  labour.  An- 
other generation  had  to  pass  before  the  workmen  of 
the  boroughs  were  enfranchised  and  a  beginning 
could  be  made  with  the  organisation  of  political  de- 
mocracy on  modern  lines.  It  was  said  then  by  an 
ornament  of  the  aristocratic  House  of  Commons  that 
the  privileged  classes  would  have  to  begin  to  edu- 
cate their  masters.  "Their  masters,"  however,  pre- 
ferred to  educate  themselves.  In  the  process  they 
also  educated  the  leaders  of  the  class  parties,  who 
began  reluctantly  to  move  upon  the  path  of  social 
reform  which  carried  them  further  away  decade  by 
decade  from  the  secure  privileged  position  they  had 
once  occupied. 

In  world  politics  at  the  same  time  the  democratic 
movement,  which  had  received  an  immense  impetus 
from  the  transitory  triumph  of  revolutionary  prin- 
ciples in  France,  was  crushed  beneath  the  weight  of 


NEW  PARTY  PROGRAMME  21 

the  reactionary  "Holy  Alliance,"  formed  by  the 
kings  for  the  protection  of  the  monarchical  principle 
and  the  suppression  of  every  liberal  and  humanising 
idea.  It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  describe  how 
the  democratic  movement  shook  off  this  incubus  and 
introduced  the  epoch  of  popular  government  on  the 
continent  and  at  home.  It  must  be  enough  to  say 
that  a  backward  glance  at  the  history  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  will  show  that  the  people  have  been 
steadily  extending  the  range  of  their  influence  in 
politics  and  affairs,  without  any  very  clear  notion  of 
what  they  were  doing  or  how  the  final  stages  in  the 
conquest  of  political  power  by  the  organised  demo- 
cracy were  to  be  surmounted.  Democracy  had  to 
fight  hard  for  every  inch  of  ground  it  won.  It  was 
in  the  grip  of  mighty  forces  it  had  not  learned  how  to 
control.  It  fought  these  forces  blindly,  confounding 
some  that  were,  if  properly  used,  beneficent,  with 
those  that  were  entirely  malignant.  It  could  not 
see  that  the  mechanical  inventions  of  Watt, 
Hargreaves,  Arkwright,  Crompton,  Cartwright, 
which  revolutionised  the  industrial  system  at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century,  were  only  bad  because 
they  were  allowed  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  cap- 
italist classes.  It  is  not  surprising  if,  in  its  empiri- 
cal approach  to  politics,  democracy  made  some  mis- 


22  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

takes,  misjudged  the  direction  in  which  events  were 
travelling,  and  had  but  a  fumbling  grasp  upon  the 
reins. 

All  this  is  of  the  past.  The  situation  to-day  is 
very  different.  Democracy  is  awake,  and  aware  of 
its  own  power.  It  sees  things  in  a  better  perspec- 
tive, and  realises  that  at  home  and  abroad  the 
triumph  of  democratic  principles  in  politics  and  in- 
dustry and  social  life  is  a  matter  simply  of  wise  and 
capable  leadership  and  resolute  and  united  effort  on 
the  part  of  all  sections  of  the  organised  movement. 
There  never  was  a  bigger  opportunity  for  democracy 
to  achieve  its  main  aims  than  the  one  which  now 
offers.  It  is  time  that  we  should  begin  to  think  not 
only  of  the  great  social  and  economic  changes  that 
are  to  take  effect  in  the  coming  period  of  reconstruc- 
tion, but  of  the  methods  and  means  of  securing  them. 
The  war  has  proved  to  democracy  that  a  dictator- 
ship, whether  with  one  head  or  five,  is  incompatible 
with  its  spirit  and  its  ideals  even  in  war-time.  It 
has  also  revealed  many  serious  defects  in  the  struc- 
ture of  society.  And  it  has  shown  the  need  for  dras- 
tic change  in  the  composition  and  organisation  of  po- 
litical parties.  It  is  generally  acknowledged  that 
the  old  party  system  has  irretrievably  broken  down. 
Evidence  of  this  is  afforded  by  the  clamant  call  for 
new  parties.     The  appearance  upon  the  horizon  of  a 


NEW  PARTY  PROGRAMME  23 

National  Party  and  a  Women's  Party,  the  proba- 
bility of  separate  groups  forming  in  Parliament 
around  the  personality  of  political  leaders  who  have 
lost  or  are  losing  their  grip  upon  the  more  or  less 
coherent  and  strongly  organised  parties  of  pre-war 
days,  are  symptoms  of  this  disintegration.  Politi- 
cal power  is  about  to  be  re-distributed,  not  only 
amongst  the  electors  under  the  Franchise  Bill,  but 
amongst  the  political  parties  in  Parliament  which 
will  claim  to  represent  the  new  democratic  conscious- 
ness. Minor  readjustments  designed  to  adapt  or- 
thodox Liberalism  or  Unionism  to  the  changing 
psychology  of  the  electorate  will  not  avail.  A 
thorough-going  transformation  of  the  machinery  of 
the  parliamentary  parties  and  a  fundamental  re- 
vision of  their  programmes  are  in  my  judgment  not 
merely  timely  but  necessary. 

The  Labour  Party,  at  any  rate,  has  proceeded 
upon  the  assumption  that  reconstruction  is  inevita- 
ble. It  has  formulated  a  scheme  which  is  delib- 
erately designed  to  give  the  enfranchised  millions 
full  opportunity  to  express  their  political  prefer- 
ences in  the  choice  of* members  to  represent  them  in 
the  Reconstruction  Parliament  which  will  have  to 
deal  with  the  vast  problems  arising  out  of  the  war. 
The  outline  of  the  new  party  constitution  is  now 
familiar  to  every  attentive  reader  of  the  newspapers. 


24  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

It  contemplates  the  creation  of  a  national  demo- 
cratic party,  founded  upon  the  organised  working- 
class  movement,  and  open  to  every  worker  who  la- 
bours by  hand  or  brain.  Under  this  scheme  the 
Labour  Party  will  be  transformed,  quickly  and 
quietly,  from  a  federation  of  societies,  national  and 
local,  into  a  nation-wide  political  organisation  with 
branches  in  every  parliamentary  constituency,  in 
which  members  will  be  enrolled  both  as  workers  and 
as  citizens,  whether  they  be  men  or  women,  and 
whether  they  belong  to  any  trade  union  or  socialist 
society  or  are  unattached  democrats  with  no  ac- 
knowledged allegiance  to  any  industrial  or  political 
movement.  We  are  casting  the  net  wide  because  we 
realise  that  real  political  democracy  cannot  be  organ- 
ised on  the  basis  of  class  interest.  Retaining  the 
support  of  the  affiliated  societies,  both  national  and 
local,  from  which  it  derives  its  weight  and  its  fight- 
ing funds,  the  Labour  Party  leaves  them  with  their 
voting  power  and  right  of  representation  in  its  coun- 
cils unimpaired;  but  in  order  that  the  party  may 
more  faithfully  reflect  constituency  opinion  it  is  also 
proposed  to  create  in  every  constituency  something 
more  than  the  existing  trades  council  or  local  labour 
party.  It  is  proposed  to  multiply  the  local  organi- 
sations and  to  open  them  to  individual  men  and 
women,  both  hand-workers  and  brain- workers,  who 


NEW  PARTY  PROGRAMME  25 

accept  the  party  constitution  and  agree  with  its  aims. 
The  individually  enrolled  members  will  have,  like 
the  national  societies,  their  own  representatives  in 
the  party's  councils,  and  we  confidently  believe  that 
year  by  year  their  influence  will  deepen  and  extend. 
The  weakness  of  the  old  constitution  was  that  it 
placed  the  centre  of  gravity  in  the  national  society 
and  not  in  the  constituency  organisation :  it  did  not 
enable  the  individual  voter  to  get  into  touch  with 
the  party  (except  in  one  or  two  isolated  cases,  like 
that  of  Woolwich  or  Barnard  Castle)  except  through 
the  trade  union,  the  socialist  society,  or  the  co- 
operative society.  The  new  constitution  emphasises 
the  importance  of  the  individual  voter.  It  says  to 
the  man  and  woman  who  have  lost  or  never  had  sym- 
pathy with  the  orthodox  parties,  "You  have  the 
opportunity  now  not  merely  of  voting  for  Labour 
representatives  in  Parliament,  but  of  joining  the 
party  and  helping  to  mould  its  policy  and  shape  its 
future." 

Under  the  old  conditions  the  appeal  of  the  party 
was  limited.  It  has  seemed  to  be,  though  it  never 
actually  was,  a  class  party  like  any  other.  It  was 
regarded  as  the  party  of  the  manual  wage-earners. 
Its  programme  was  assumed,  by  those  who  have  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  examine  its  whole  propaganda, 
to  reflect  the  views  of  trade  unionists  not  as  citizens 


26  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

with  a  common  interest  in  good  government,  but  as 
workers  seeking  remedies  for  a  series  of  material 
grievances  touching  hours  of  labour,  rates  of  wages, 
conditions  of  employment.  This  misapprehension 
rests  upon  a  too  narrow  definition  of  the  term 
"Labour."  On  the  lips  of  the  earlier  propagandists 
the  word  was  used  to  differentiate  between  those 
whose  toil  enriched  the  community,  and  those  who 
made  no  productive  effort  of  any  kind  but  lived  idly 
and  luxuriously  upon  the  fruits  of  the  labours  of 
others.  It  is  that  differentiation  we  design  to  per- 
petuate in  the  title  of  the  party.  The  Labour  Party 
is  the  party  of  the  producers  whose  labour  of  hand 
and  brain  provide  the  necessities  of  life  for  all  and 
dignify  and  elevate  human  existence.  That  the 
producers  have  been  robbed  of  the  major  part  of  the 
fruits  of  their  industry  under  the  individualist  sys- 
tem of  capitalist  production  is  a  justification  for  the 
party's  claims.  One  of  the  main  aims  of  the  party 
is  to  secure  for  every  producer  his  (or  her)  full  share 
of  those  fruits — and  to  ensure  the  most  equitable 
distribution  of  the  nation's  wealth  that  may  be 
possible,  on  the  basis  of  the  common  ownership  of 
land  and  capital,  and  the  democratic  control  of  all 
the  activities  of  society. 

The  practice  of  empirical  politics,  the  effort  to 
secure  this  or  that  specific  reform,  will  not  suffice; 


NEW  PARTY  PROGRAMME  27 

Labour  lays  down  its  carefully  thought-out,  compre- 
hensive plan  for  the  reconstruction  of  society,  which 
will  guarantee  freedom,  security,  and  equality.  We 
propose,  as  a  first  step,  a  series  of  national  minima 
to  protect  the  people's  standard  of  life.  For  the 
workers  of  all  grades  and  both  sexes  we  demand  and 
mean  to  secure  proper  legislative  provision  against 
unemployment,  accident,  and  industrial  disease,  a 
reasonable  amount  of  leisure,  a  minimum  rate  of 
wages.  We  shall  insist  upon  a  large  and  practica- 
ble scheme  to  protect  the  whole  wage-earning  class 
against  the  danger  of  unemployment  and  reduction 
of  wages,  with  a  consequent  degradation  of  the 
standard  of  life,  when  the  war  ends  and  the  forces 
are  demobilised  and  the  munitions  factories  cease 
work.  The  task  of  finding  employment  for  dis- 
banded fighting  men  and  discharged  munition  work- 
ers we  regard  as  a  national  obligation:  we  shall  see 
to  it  that  work  is  found  for  all,  that  the  work  is  pro- 
ductive and  socially  useful,  and  that  standard  rates 
of  wages  shall  be  paid  for  this  work.  In  the  reor- 
ganisation of  industry  after  the  war,  the  Labour 
Party  will  claim  for  the  workers  an  increasing  share 
in  the  management  and  control  of  the  factories  and 
workshops.  What  the  workers  want  is  freedom,  a 
definite  elevation  of  their  status,  the  abolition  of  the 
system  of  wage-slavery  which  destroyed  their  inde- 


28  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

pendence  and  made  freedom  in  any  real  sense  impos- 
sible. We  believe  that  the  path  to  the  democratic 
control  of  industry  lies  in  the  common  ownership  of 
the  means  of  production:  and  we  shall  strenuously 
resist  every  proposal  to  hand  back  to  private  capital- 
ists the  great  industries  and  services  that  have  come 
under  Government  control  during  the  war.  This 
control  has  been  extended  to  the  importation  and 
distribution  of  many  necessary  commodities — many 
of  the  staple  foods  of  the  people  and  some  of  the  raw 
materials  of  industry.  More  than  the  great  key 
industries  and  vital  services  have  come  under  con- 
trol ;  and  we  do  not  mean  to  loosen  the  popular  grip 
upon  them,  but  on  the  contrary  to  strengthen  it. 

In  the  field  of  national  finance  the  Labour  Party 
stands  for  a  system  of  taxation  regulated  not  by  the 
interests  of  the  possessing  and  profiteering  classes, 
but  by  the  claims  of  the  professional  and  housekeep- 
ing classes,  whose  interests  are  identical  with  those 
of  the  manual  workers.  We  believe  that  indirect 
taxation  upon  commodities  should  not  fall  upon  any 
necessity  of  life,  but  should  be  limited  to  luxuries, 
especially  and  principally  those  which  it  is  socially 
desirable  to  extinguish.  Direct  taxation,  we  hold, 
upon  large  incomes  and  private  fortunes  is  the 
method  by  which  the  greater  part  of  the .  necessary 
revenue  should  be  raised;  we  advocate  the  retention 


NEW  PARTY  PROGRAMME  29 

in  some  appropriate  form  of  the  excess  profits  tax; 
and  we  shall  oppose  every  attempt  to  place  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  producing  classes,  the  professional 
classes,  and  the  small  traders,  the  main  financial 
burden  of  the  war.  We  seek  to  prevent,  by  methods 
of  common  ownership  and  of  taxation,  the  accumu- 
lation of  great  fortunes  in  private  hands.  Instead 
of  senseless  individual  extravagances  we  desire  to 
see  the  wealth  of  the  nation  expended  for  social  pur- 
poses— for  the  constant  improvement  and  increase 
of  the  nation's  enterprises,  to  make  provision  for  the 
sick,  the  aged,  and  the  infirm,  to  establish  a  genuine 
national  system  of  education,  to  provide  the  means 
of  public  improvements  in  all  directions  by  which 
the  happiness  and  health  of  the  people  will  be  en- 
sured. One  step  in  this  direction  will  be  taken  when 
the  manufacture  and  sale  of  intoxicating  drink  is  no 
longer  left  to  those  who  find  profit  in  encouraging 
the  utmost  possible  consumption.  The  party's  pol- 
icy in  this  matter  asserts  the  right  of  the  people  to 
deal  with  the  licensing  question  in  accordance  with 
the  opinion  of  localities;  we  urge  that  the  localities 
should  have  conferred  upon  them  full  power  to  pro- 
hibit the  sale  of  liquor  within  their  boundaries,  or 
alternatively  to  decide  whether  the  number  of 
licences  should  be  reduced,  upon  what  conditions 
they  may  be  held,  and  whether  they  shall  be  under 


30  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

private  or  any  form  of  public  control.  In  our  rela- 
tions to  other  peoples,  whether  those  of  our  blood 
and  tongue  in  the  British  Empire,  or  those  of  other 
races  and  languages,  we  repudiate  the  idea  of  domi- 
nation and  exploitation,  we  stand  for  the  steady  de- 
velopment of  the  idea  of  local  self-government  and 
the  freedom  of  nations.  On  all  these  points  and  the 
problems  underlying  them,  the  Labour  Party  lays 
down  its  general  principles  and  policies ;  *  and  from 
time  to  time  Labour's  representative  assemblies  will 
apply  these  principles  to  the  problems  of  immediate 
and  pressing  importance,  and  formulate  the  pro- 
gramme which  the  electors  will  be  invited  to  sup- 
port. In  opposition,  and  presently  as  we  believe 
and  hope  in  office.  Labour  will  seek  to  build  up  a 
new  order  of  society,  rooted  in  equality,  dedicated  to 
freedom,  governed  on  democratic  principles. 

*  For  a  detailed  statement  of  the  party's  reconstruction  proposals, 
see  "Labour  and  the  New  Social  Order"  printed  as  an  appendix. 


CHAPTER  III 
SOLIDARITY 

The  organised  workers  have  displayed  a  wonderful 
spirit  of  loyalty  and  remarkable  fortitude,  courage, 
and  determination  throughout  the  period  of  the  war, 
but  from  now  onwards  the  need  for  practical  and 
effective  solidarity  will  become  increasingly  evident 
and  insistent.  The  tremendous  sacrifices  of  the 
present  are  a  blood-offering  for  the  security  of  the 
future,  and  a  grave  responsibility  will  rest  upon 
the  representatives  of  the  several  nations  concerned 
if,  from  any  unworthy  motive,  they  fail  to  arrange 
such  a  peace  settlement  as  will  afford  the  peoples 
of  the  world  a  reasonable  prospect  of  security, 
freedom,  and  progress.  If  such  a  peace  is  not 
realised  it  will  mean  that  the  most  vital  object  of  our 
participation  in  the  present  grievous  and  devastating 
conflict  has  not  been  attained,  and  that  the  military 
failure  of  Germany  has  not  proved  to  be  a  victory  for 
the  Allied  cause. 

It  is  imperative  that  the  workers  of  the  world 
should  realise  that  they  are  too  intimately  concerned 

31 


32  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

m  the  proper  adjustment  of  all  the  great  war  issues 
to  allow  them  to  be  settled  in  any  other  than  a  just 
and  honourable  way.  Moreover,  immense  problems 
of  political,  social,  and  material  reconstruction  will 
present  themselves  for  solution  immediately  peace 
is  declared.  These  problems  will  not  be  confined 
to  any  one  nation,  but  will  be  international  in  char- 
acter, scope,  and  effect ;  and,  if  they  are  to  be  solved 
successfully,  joint  action  and  close  co-operation 
between  all  peoples  will  be  essential. 

The  defeat  of  aggressive  Militarism  and  Autoc- 
racy will  not  dispose  of  all  the  great  difficulties  con- 
fronting Democracy;  it  will  only  mean,  in  the  event 
of  an  honourable  and  lasting  peace,  that  the  peoples 
will  be  free  to  concentrate  all  their  energies,  their 
creative  and  constructive  genius,  on  the  considera- 
tion and  solution  of  these  common  difficulties.  De- 
mocracy has  in  its  hands  the  necessary  power  to 
arrange  the  future  destiny  of  the  world.  If  the  dem- 
ocratic forces  are  to  be  successful,  it  is  of  essential 
importance  that  they  shall  combine  with  singleness 
of  aim,  firm  determination,  and  complete  unity  un- 
der the  banner  of  Freedom,  Peace,  and  Progress. 

There  is  ample  evidence  that  the  workers  of  this 
country  have  not  yet  formed  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  vital  importance  of  all  the  forces  of  democracy 
uniting  with  one  will  and  a  common  purpose  to  se- 


SOLIDARITY  33 

cure  in  the  peace  settlement  and  the  subsequent  na- 
tional and  international  reconstruction  the  essential 
conditions  of  "a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth." 
It  is  true  they  intend  that  the  new  Society  of  Na- 
tions shall  be  built  on  the  solid  rocks  of  justice, 
honour,  and  humanity,  instead  of  being  rebuilt  on 
the  shifting  sands  of  oppression,  conquest,  and  in- 
ternational jealousy.  They  intend  that  brute  force 
and  all  other  barriers  to  "Peace  on  Earth,  Good-will 
among  men"  shall  be  done  away  with  and  that  the 
conclusion  of  this  terrible  struggle  shall  inaugurate 
a  new  era  in  which  moral  force  shall  hold  complete 
and  unquestioned  sway.  And  it  must  be  obvious 
that  anything  short  of  this  would  mean  that  the 
present  golden  opportunity  had  been  missed  and 
would  give  a  new  lease  of  life  to  the  forces  of  reac- 
tion and  militarism  throughout  the  whole  world. 
The  only  power  that  can  save  the  present  and 
future  generations  from  a  repetition  of  the  present 
ruthless  struggle,  is  a  united  world  Democracy. 

But  if  full  advantage  is  to  be  taken  of  this  oppor- 
tunity to  ensure  that  the  destiny  of  the  world  shall  be 
at  the  complete  disposal  of  the  people  themselves,  it 
will  require  of  Democracy  all  the  best  qualities  of 
real  statesmanship.  It  is  not  sufficient  that  the  na- 
tions shall  have  a  clear  vision  of  the  new  world 
which  they  desire  to  dwell  in;  they  must  organise 


34  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

with  unity  and  strength  of  purpose  and  use  their 
power  to  lay  the  foundations  true  and  firm  and  aft- 
erwards to  complete  the  whole  edifice  on  right  and 
noble  lines. 

A  real  People's  International,  which  shall  give 
concrete  and  practical  expression  to  the  spiritual 
aspirations,  social  ideals,  and  moral  passion  of  hu- 
manity, must  be  founded  on  an  unshakable  faith  of 
the  nations  in  the  spirit  of  democracy,  and  the  recog- 
nition by  all  peoples  not  only  of  their  national  rights 
and  privileges  but  of  their  international  obligations 
and  responsibilities.  Freedom  at  home  and  domi- 
nation abroad  are  incompatible  with  the  ideals  of 
democracy.  If  the  German  people  are  sincere  in 
their  professions  of  faith  in  democracy  and  the 
principles  of  equality  among  all  nations,  large  and 
small,  strong  and  weak,  they  must  begin  to  establish 
in  their  own  country  a  constitutional  system  of 
democratic  government.  It  is  not  a  matter  that 
needs  to  be  postponed  for  consideration  after  the 
war.  Russia,  the  latest  addition  to  the  League  of 
Democracies,  did  not  neglect  to  strive  for  internal 
freedom  during  the  progress  of  hostilities,  and  if  the 
peoples  of  the  world  are  to  be  responsible  for  arrang- 
ing the  terms  of  a  democratic  and  stable  peace  the 
German  nation  will  need  to  establish  popular  con- 
trol over  its  own  national  affairs.     And  until  this 


SOLIDARITY  35 

is  done  it  will  be  impossible  to  build  a  completely 
successful  and  effectual  People's  International. 

In  the  past  Democracy  has  been  far  too  ready  and 
content  to  contract-out  the  vitally  important  work 
of  national  and  international  construction  with  the 
inevitable  result  that  the  jerry-built  structure 
erected  was  too  frail  to  stand  when  the  storm-clouds 
of  war  burst  over  Europe  with  such  terrible  effect 
in  1914.  There  must  be  an  end  of  this  policy. 
The  peoples  must  shoulder  their  own  responsibili- 
ties, and  must  see  to  it  that  the  new  world  edifice 
which  is  to  be  built  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  shall  be 
capable  of  resisting  all  international  storms  that 
may  threaten  humanity  in  the  future. 

If  Democracy  is  to  co-operate  effectively  and  suc- 
cessfully in  international  affairs,  it  is  altogether 
essential  that  the  democratic  forces  shall  be  united 
and  solid  at  home.  It  may  safely  be  said  that 
hitherto  too  much  prominence  has  been  given  to  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  regarding  tactics  and  methods,  to 
the  incalculable  advantage  of  the  reactionary  and 
opposing  forces.  Surely  past  experiences  must 
have  proved  beyond  all  shadow  of  doubt  the  neces- 
sity of  all  sections  of  the  movement  inspired  by  the 
same  high  ideals  combining  to  enforce  their  common 
will.  We  cannot  afford  to  fritter  away  our  strength 
by  internal  wrangling  on  issues  which,  after  all,  are 


36  JHE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

not  of  vital  importance  and  are  only  secondary  to 
the  main  aims  we  have  in  view. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  of  past  dif- 
ferences of  opinion,  and  however  acute  may  have 
been  the  disagreements  regarding  the  causes  of  the 
war  and  the  methods  employed  to  bring  it  to  a  suc- 
cessful conclusion,  there  can  be  no  substantial  dif- 
ference among  the  various  sections  of  the  great 
democratic  army  regarding  the  kind  of  peace  which 
will  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy,  or  as  to  the 
need  for  a  comprehensive  and  effective  policy  of 
reconstruction.  Of  this  we  may  be  assured,  the 
future  will  only  be  democracy's  if  democracy  con- 
centrates all  its  powers  into  one  channel  and  seeks 
to  enforce  its  will  by  united  action.  Concentration 
of  its  strength  can  only  be  achieved  by  complete 
unity  of  purpose  and  action.  What  is  most  urgently 
required  is  breadth  of  vision  to  focus  in  broad  out- 
line the  great  aims  of  democracy,  and  courage, 
power,  and  tenacity  to  strive  to  attain  those  ideals. 
There  is  little  divergence  among  the  various  demo- 
cratic forces  of  the  country  so  far  as  aims  and  objects 
are  concerned;  but  if  we  are  to  attain  a  reasonable 
measure  of  co-operation,  there  will  have  to  be  a 
greater  disposition  on  all  sides  to  seek  accommoda- 
tion regarding  the  methods  by  which  our  aims  and 
ideals  may  be  achieved.     "United  we  stand,  divided 


SOLIDARITY  37 

we  fall,"  is  a  significant  phrase,  and  the  various 
forces  of  reaction  have  long  since  learnt  to  give  it  full 
recognition  and  to  stand  together  in  face  of  the 
common  enemy,  democracy.  Self-preservation  has 
compelled  them  to  work  in  unison,  but  only  the  lack 
of  cohesion  and  co-operation  on  the  part  of  the 
democratic  forces  has  enabled  them  to  stand  together 
so  long  and  to  exert  so  great  an  influence  on  the  des- 
tiny of  the  people. 

But  the  war  has  changed  men's  thoughts  and 
introduced  new  standards  and  new  values.  War, 
like  everything  else  in  life,  affects  the  common  peo- 
ple more  than  it  does  any  other  section  of  the  com- 
munity, and  they  are  determined  to  have  a  greater 
measure  of  control  in  the  direction  of  national  and 
international,  social,  industrial,  and  political  affairs. 
But  determination  to  control  and  direct  presupposes 
the  definition  of  the  lines  along  which  organised 
democracy  proposes  to  direct  affairs  when  it  has  se- 
cured control.  Organised  democracy  must  have  its 
own  definite  and  well-thought-out  plans  of  construc- 
tive reform — local,  national,  and  international;  and 
it  must  also  have  its  own  ''union  sacree"  to  ensure 
that  the  whole  of  its  power  shall  be  organised  and 
directed  along  those  channels  which  are  best  calcu- 
lated to  achieve  success.  Greater  difficulties  will 
have  to  be  faced  and  more  serious  obstacles  overcome 


38  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

than  ever  before.  For  it  is  easier  to  criticise  the  un- 
satisfactory schemes  of  others  than  to  produce  sound 
constructive  schemes  of  one's  own,  and  with  the 
greatest  measure  of  unity  and  the  most  helpful  con- 
ditions prevailing,  the  problems  to  be  solved  at  the 
close  of  this  war  will  demand  all  that  is  best  in 
Democracy.  The  vast  problems  of  reconstruction, 
which  include  demobilisation,  industrial  reorganisa- 
tion, a  world  food-shortage,  financial  recuperation, 
unemployment  probably  on  a  serious  scale,  and  a 
host  of  other  pressing  problems  of  far-reaching 
effect,  will  call  for  immediate  attention.  No  half- 
hearted or  temporary  measures  will  suffice  to  dispose 
of  them  successfully.  They  must  be  tackled  in  a 
comprehensive,  courageous,  and  practical  manner, 
and  a  truly  national  Labour  Party,  if  it  is  to  prove 
the  best  instrument  to  solve  them,  must  be  united  in 
determination,  strong  in  power  and  influence,  clear 
in  vision,  and  audacious  and  courageous  in  its  meth- 
ods of  dealing  with  practical  politics.  The  old 
statesmanship  has  failed.  If  democratic  statesman- 
ship is  to  succeed  it  must  be  given  a  fair  chance  by 
its  own  people.  The  coming  together  of  the  Trades 
Congress  and  the  Labour  Party  and  the  Co-operative 
movement,  and  the  determination  of  the  latter  to 
enter  upon  direct  political  action,  is  significant  of  a 
new  spirit  of  unity.     Then  the  new  policy  of  the 


SOLIDARITY  39 

Labour  Party  is  indicative  of  a  bolder  effort  to  im- 
press National,  Inter-Dominion,  and  International 
life  with  a  new  spirit.  This  is  all  to  the  good  pro- 
vided it  is  accompanied  by  a  clearer  conception  of 
personal  and  collective  responsibility  and  the  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  in  things  essential  there  must 
be  unity,  and  in  things  doubtful  liberty.  It  must 
more  than  ever  be  appreciated  that  democracy  is 
more  than  a  form  of  government,  it  is  a  spirit.  As 
Mazzini  said,  it  is  an  attempt  at  the  practical  reali- 
sation of  the  prayer  "Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will 
be  done  as  in  Heaven  so  on  earth."  Moved  by  a 
common  love  unto  a  common  activity  in  a  common 
cause  for  a  common  humanity,  we  must  lift  ourselves 
above  the  narrow  and  divisive  influences  which  ren- 
der futile  so  much  effort.  We  must  welcome  the 
active  co-operation  of  all  who  stand  for  justice  and 
seek  the  largest  liberty  and  the  greatest  good.  The 
edifice  to  be  erected  on  the  foundation  of  the  will  of 
a  free  people  must  be  solid  and  substantial.  The 
democratic  forces  must  begin  at  once,  and,  whatever 
may  be  their  difficulties,  continue  their  task  of  recon- 
structing the  world  in  a  spirit  of  unity,  co-operation 
and  fraternity,  if  they  would  realise  an  abiding  suc- 
cess. 


CHAPTER  IV 
WORLD  SECURITY 

President  Wilson's  famous  declaration  that  the 
supreme  inspiration  of  the  military  efforts  of  the 
Allies  against  the  Central  Powers  is  the  desire  to 
make  the  world  safe  for  democracy  will  remain  for 
all  time  one  of  the  classic  utterances  of  real  states- 
manship. It  crystallises  in  a  brief  sentence  the 
spiritual  yearnings  and  idealist  sentiments  of  all 
free  peoples.  The  war  itself  has  exercised  a  purify- 
ing influence  on  the  souls  of  men  and  women,  has 
stirred  them  to  the  depths  of  their  being,  and  quick- 
ened and  intensified  their  powers  of  insight  and  dis- 
crimination. The  outlook  of  the  individual  has 
been  broadened  and  his  sense  of  real  values  has 
become  keener  and  more  accurate.  He  is  no  longer 
satisfied  by  a  general  recognition  of  his  right  to  earn 
the  means  of  existence;  he  now  demands  to  be  guar- 
anteed the  right  to  live  in  peace  and  security.  He 
wishes  neither  to  oppress  nor  to  be  oppressed.     The 

war,  by  the  frightful  ravages  and  cruel  sacrifices 

40 


WORLD  SECURITY  41 

which  it  has  entailed,  has  shown  him,  perhaps  more 
clearly  and  brutally  than  anything  else  could  do, 
how  nearly  his  own  life  and  domestic  happiness  are 
linked  up  with  the  national  life  and  welfare  of  his 
country.  He  has  learned  by  keen  suffering  and  bit- 
ter experience  that  the  immoral  and  unscrupulous 
policy  of  one  nation  may  plunge  the  whole  world 
into  the  lowest  depths  of  misery  and  desolation. 
He  has  realised  from  the  example  of  Germany  that 
a  citizen  may  be  called  upon  personally  to  expiate 
the  crimes  and  follies  of  his  Government.  And  as  a 
direct  consequence  of  this  new  and  fuller  compre- 
hension of  his  liability  as  a  citizen,  he  has  deter- 
mined to  take  a  more  practical  and  effectual  part  in 
the  direction  and  control  of  national  and  interna- 
tional affairs. 

In  the  past,  British  Governments  decided  when 
the  nation  should  make  war  and  afterwards  deter- 
mined the  terms  that  should  bring  about  its  settle- 
ment. To-day,  it  is  the  British  people  who  are  at 
war  and  the  people  must  decide  the  terms  of  peace. 
Despite  the  prolonged  period  of  hostilities  and  mili- 
tary disappointments,  they  remain  steadfast  in  their 
determination  to  defeat  the  ambitious  schemes  of 
aggressive  German  militarism,  and  they  will  not 
relax  their  efforts  until  their  war  aims  are  capable 
of  achievement.     Speaking  of  our  War  ideals,  Mr. 


42  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

Asquith  said,  in  his  Dublin  speech,  on  September 
25th,  1915:— 

Forty-four  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  war  of  1870,  Mr, 
Gladstone  used  these  words.  He  said:  "The  greatest 
triumph  of  our  time  will  be  the  enthronement  of  the  idea  of 
public  right  as  the  governing  idea  of  European  politics.  ,  .  ." 
The  idea  of  public  right — what  does  it  mean  when  translated 
into  concrete  terms?  It  means  first  and  foremost  the  clear- 
ing of  the  ground  by  the  definite  repudiation  of  militarism  as 
the  governing  factor  in  the  relation  of  States  and  of  the  future 
moulding  of  the  European  world.  It  means,  next,  that  room 
must  be  found  and  kept  for  the  independent  existence  and 
the  free  development  of  the  smaller  nationalities  each  with 
a  corporate  consciousness  of  its  own.  Belgium,  Holland, 
Switzerland,  the  Scandinavian  countries,  Greece,  and  the 
Balkan  States, — they  must  be  recognised  as  having  as  good 
a  title  as  their  powerful  neighbours — more  powerful  in 
strength  and  wealth — to  a  place  in  the  sun.  And  it  means 
finally,  or  it  ought  to  mean,  perhaps  by  a  slow  and  gradual 
process,  the  substitution  for  force,  for  the  clash  of  competing 
ambitions,  for  groupings  and  alliances  and  a  precarious  equi- 
poise, of  a  real  European  partnership  based  on  the  recognition 
of  equal  rights  and  established  and  enforced  by  a  common 
wiU. 

These  are  the  ideals  for  which  the  people  of  this 
and  the  other  Allied  countries  are  fighting.  It  is  not 
against  the  German  people  as  individuals  that  their 
wrath  and  hostility  are  directed,  but  against 
Germany's  policy  of  aggression  and  oppression. 
They  do  not  desire  to  exterminate  the  German  peo- 


WORLD  SECURITY  43 

pie,  but  they  are  determined  to  exterminate  the 
policy  of  military,  political,  and  economic  domina- 
tion which  has  been  and  still  is  a  standing  menace 
to  the  security  and  freedom  of  humanity.  The 
power  they  are  fighting  against  is  the  set  of  false 
ideals  which  are  "the  ruthless  master  of  the  German 
people."  It  is  the  ambition  to  world  domination, 
the  worship  of  militarism,  and  the  belief  in  brute 
force  as  a  proper  instrument  of  policy.  But  secur- 
ity will  not  be  obtained  by  this  soulless  policy  merely 
changing  its  nationality  from  German  to  British  or 
French  or  that  of  any  other  of  the  Allies.  The  idol 
of  rampant  and  aggressive  militarism  must  be  shat- 
tered beyond  repair,  and  the  faith  of  all  nations  in  its 
power  and  efficacy  must  be  utterly  destroyed.  Such 
a  policy  by  whatever  nation  it  might  be  pursued 
would  inevitably  lead  to  a  similar  world  catastrophe. 
The  British  soldiers  and  the  British  people  are  not 
fighting  for  British  domination  or  French  domina- 
tion or  domination  by  any  of  the  Allies.  The  idea 
of  world  domination  was  not  "made  in  Germany"; 
it  is  as  old  as  world-history  itself.  Germany  is 
merely  the  latest  nation  to  be  deluded  by  these  impos- 
sible dreams,  which  in  the  past  have  ended  in  defeat, 
ruin,  and  disillusionment.  The  end  will  be  in  no 
wise  different  for  Germany. 

It  should  be  quite  apparent,  therefore,  that  world 


44  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

security  cannot  be  guaranteed  simply  by  the  defeat 
of  Germany's  ambitious  schemes,  but  only  by  the 
kind  of  peace  settlement  which  is  made  after  she 
has  been  completely  frustrated.  Peace  terms  must 
be  based  upon  principles  and  justice,  and  not  gov- 
erned by  expediency  or  selfish  national  ambition. 
It  must  secure  restitution  of  forcibly  annexed  terri- 
tory, reparation  for  all  the  wanton  destruction  and 
wrongs  consequent  upon  Germany's  military  aggres- 
sion, full  recognition  of  the  rights  of  all  peoples, 
and  guarantees  for  the  security  of  world  peace. 

The  people  have  made  war  in  defence  of  high 
ideals ;  they  must  see  to  it  that  when  peace  comes  it 
shall  be  governed  by  wise  principles.  As  President 
Wilson  has  courageously  declared: — 

The  treaties  and  agreements  which  bring  the  war  to  an  end 
must  embody  terms  that  will  create  a  peace  that  is  worth 
guaranteeing  and  preserving,  a  peace  that  Will  win  the  ap- 
proval of  mankind,  not  merely  a  peace  that  will  serve  the 
several  interests  and  immediate  aims  of  the  nations  engaged. 

The  first  step  towards  making  the  world  safe  for  all 
peoples  is  the  establishment  of  a  stable  peace 
founded  on  the  inalienable  rights  of  mankind;  a 
peace  which  will  assuage  all  legitimate  grievances 
and  causes  of  friction  between  one  nation  and 
another;  a  peace  that  will  offer  a  real  prospect  of  the 
nations  living  together  in  amity  and  concord. 


WORLD  SECURITY  45 

The  question  which  then  presents  itself  for  answer 
is:  When  such  a  peace  shall  have  been  agreed  upon, 
by  what  means  can  its  permanency  be  guaranteed? 
This  is  a  matter  of  primary  importance,  for  the 
hopes  of  all  peoples  are  centred  on  security  for  the 
future.  They  are  more  anxious  about  this  than 
about  anything  else:  that  when  this  war  is  termi- 
nated the  world  shall  be  maintained  in  peace  and 
tranquillity.  This  is  no  new  problem  which  con- 
fronts statesmanship.  First  alliances,  then  group- 
ings, and  finally  the  system  of  balance  of  power,  all 
had  for  their  object  security.  And  each  in  turn 
failed  lamentably.  But  if  there  is  not  to  be  a  return 
to  the  dangerous,  sensitive,  and  ever  fluctuating  bal- 
ance of  power  what  alternative  has  statesmanship  to 
offer  in  its  place?  One  thing  is  certain,  namely, 
that  the  people  will  not  easily  tolerate  a  return  to  the 
precarious  conditions  of  pre-war  days.  They  recog- 
nise that  the  old  methods  have  all  ended  in  disaster 
and  they  will  readily  turn  to  any  practical  solution 
of  the  problem  which  may  be  propounded  if  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  if  the  worst  comes  to  the 
worst,  it  could  hardly  plunge  the  world  into  greater 
agony  and  distress  than  the  previous  attempts  to 
secure  international  peace. 

At  the  present  moment  there  is  only  one  proposi- 
tion which  can  be  regarded  as  practical  and  concrete 


46  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

and  which  contains  the  essence  of  real  statesman- 
ship, and  that  is  the  proposal  to  form  a  League  of 
Nations  to  guarantee  the  peace  and  security  of  the 
world.  It  is  a  reasoned,  intelligent,  and  scientific 
attempt  to  construct  international  machinery  to  ad- 
minister justice  between  nations  with  a  view  to  dis- 
posing of  all  points  of  friction  which  may  arise.  In 
reality  it  will  be  an  International  Court  of  Justice  to 
which  all  disputes  between  adhering  nations  which 
cannot  be  settled  by  diplomatic  means  must  be 
referred  to  arbitration.  Such  disputes  may  be 
either  justiciable,  i.e.,  disputes  which  are  capable  of 
being  decided  by  recognised  international  law;  or 
non- justiciable  disputes,  i.e.,  disputes  which  cannot 
be  covered  by  international  jurisprudence  but  which 
can  be  settled  by  moral  law,  provided  the  nations 
concerned  are  disposed  to  accept  moral  law  as  being 
on  at  least  as  high  a  plane  as  law  made  by  man. 

But  even  this  method  of  maintaining  world  peace 
may  not  be  fully  satisfactory  and  successful  unless 
it  has  the  full  sanction  of  the  peoples  behind  it. 
The  spirit  of  the  nation  partners  must  be  behind 
such  a  League  and  their  moral  support  must  be  sup- 
plemented  by  a  joint  organised  power — military, 
economic,  and  commercial — capable  of  enforcing 
the  decisions  of  the  League  on  any  recalcitrant  mem- 


WORLD  SECURITY  47 

ber,  and  of  defending  any  member  which  may  be 
attacked  by  a  non-adhering  nation  that  may  refuse 
to  refer  the  dispute  between  them  for  settlement  by 
pacific  means. 


CHAPTER  V 
A  PEOPLE'S  PEACE 

The  war  has  clearly  demonstrated  the  extraordinary 
power  invested  in  free  peoples.  Take  the  case  of 
the  United  States.  For  several  months  President 
Wilson  had  recognised  that  his  country  must  event- 
ually intervene  in  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies 
and  in  defence  of  the  great  principles  of  freedom  and 
liberty,  but  it  was  not  until  the  American  people 
were  convinced  beyond  all  doubt  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  this  course  that  he  was  empowered  to  or- 
ganise his  country  for  war.  In  Britain  the  publica- 
tion of  Lord  Lansdowne's  letter  was  almost  sensa- 
tional in  its  effects,  inasmuch  as  it  compelled  states- 
men to  recognise  that  the  question  of  peace  terms 
so  vitally  concerned  the  people  that  its  consideration 
could  not  be  postponed  until  the  close  of  hostilities 
but  demanded  immediate  discussion  and  definition. 
Hitherto  the  nation  has  been  more  or  less  content  to 
remain  in  ignorance  of  the  details  of  our  peace 
terms:  they  have  been  satisfied  with  general  refer- 
ences which  were  mainly  confined  to  the  statement 

48 


A  PEOPLE'S  PEACE  49 

of  broad  principles.  Now  they  are  aware  that 
while  there  may  be  universal  agreement  on  general 
principles,  the  method  of  the  application  of  those 
principles  may  differ  very  materially  according  to 
the  interpretation  of  each  nation,  and  it  is  only  by  a 
comparison  of  the  explicit  and  concrete  peace  terms 
of  each  of  the  belligerent  groups  that  the  world  can 
judge  what  now  constitutes  the  obstacles  to  a  real 
and  lasting  peace.  The  people  have  their  own  ideas 
of  peace,  and  they  are  only  concerned  with  the  diffi- 
culties to  be  surmounted  before  that  peace  can  be 
obtained;  they  do  not  care  what  obstacles  prevent 
the  attainment  of  a  Government's  peace  unless  that 
peace  is  in  strict  harmony  with  their  own  ideals. 
They  have  no  sympathy  with  selfish  national  inter- 
ests or  ambitions;  they  are  shouldering  the  oppres- 
sive and  painful  burdens  of  the  war  with  courage, 
fortitude,  and  determination,  not  merely  to  over- 
throw German  tyranny  and  her  scheme  for  world 
domination,  but  more  especially  in  order  to  secure 
such  international  re-arrangement  as  will  permit  all 
the  peoples  of  the  world  to  live  together  under  con- 
ditions of  freedom,  equality,  and  security.  They 
realise  that  there  can  be  no  national  safety  without 
international  security,  that  the  national  develop- 
ment and  happiness  of  a  people  are  indissolubly 
linked  up  with  international  tranquillity  and  good- 


so  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

will.  They  appreciate  more  than  ever  that  nation- 
alism is  not  the  final  stage  of  a  nation's  development, 
but  that  it  is  only  an  intermediate  step  to  complete 
world  internationalism.  The  effects  of  the  war 
have  been  felt  by  the  whole  world ;  there  have  been 
no  national  barriers  to  the  pain,  suffering  and  sac- 
rifices of  the  great  Armageddon.  The  whole  of  hu- 
manity has  been  crucified.  And  humanity,  bleeding 
and  torn,  cries  out  for  a  radical  and  complete  solu- 
tion of  all  the  factors  which  contributed  to  the 
present  world-catastrophe. 

Such  a  solution  can  only  be  found  in  a  peace 
which  will  remove  all  old  grievances,  prevent  the 
imposition  of  new  injustices,  establish  a  world 
recognition  and  practice  of  the  principle  of  the  right 
of  self-detern.ination  and  of  free  development  of  all 
peoples,  great  and  small.  It  must  offer  guarantees 
for  the  security  of  world  peace  in  the  future.  Se- 
curity is  the  greatest  of  all  questions  for  humanity, 
but  whatever  provisions  may  be  made  with  a  view  to 
establishing  means  for  the  maintenance  of  world 
peace,  they  will  surely  prove  to  be  useless  unless 
the  other  outstanding  political,  territorial,  economic, 
and  commercial  problems  are  settled  on  just,  honour- 
able, and  democratic  lines. 

So  far  as  the  British  people  are  concerned  they 
have  no  thoughts  of  territorial  conquests;  they  do 


A  PEOPLE'S  PEACE  51 

not  seek  forcibly  to  annex  any  portion  of  the 
national  possessions  of  any  of  the  Central  Powers 
or  their  Allies.  They  demand  neither  conquests  nor 
war  indemnities.  But  there  will  have  to  be  certain 
restorations  and  reconstitutions.  Such  necessary 
changes  will  be  covered  by  the  application  of  the 
principle  of  the  right  of  self-determination  of  all 
peoples.  Belgium  must  be  restored  to  complete  in- 
dependence and  compensated  for  the  foul  wrongs  to 
which  she  has  been  subjected  as  a  result  of  the  Ger- 
man invasion  of  her  territory.  The  questions  of 
Serbia,  Poland,  Alsace-Lorraine,  Luxembourg, 
Palestine,  and  the  extension  of  Italy  and  Roumania 
to  their  natural  boundaries,  are  all  capable  of  being 
settled  on  this  basis.  Territories  in  Asia  which 
have  been  freed  from  the  oppressive  rule  of  the 
Turks  or  the  Germans*  ought  not  to  be  returned  to 
their  old  rulers,  nor  can  they  be  appropriated  by  any 
of  the  Allied  Powers,  in  view  of  the  very  definite 
declaration  that  they  are  not  fighting  for  "annexa- 
tions." If  these  peoples  are  not  capable  of  exercis- 
ing their  right  of  self-determination,  the  administra- 
tion of  their  territories  should  be  placed  in  the  hands 
of  an  international  commission  acting  under  the  di- 
rection and  control  of  the  proposed  League  of  Na- 
tions. 

The  inhuman  methods  of  the  German  towards 


52  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

subject  races  preclude  or  ought  to  preclude  the  return 
of  the  African  colonies  recently  liberated  from  their 
control.  Though  the  natives  may  not  yet  be  in  a 
position  to  exercise  judiciously  their  right  of  self- 
determination,  they  have  given  very  definite  expres- 
sion to  their  fears  of  the  re-establishment  of  German 
rule.  They  may  not  know  what  sort  of  Govern- 
ment they  want,  but  they  certainly  do  know  the  kind 
of  rule  they  do  not  want,  and  that  is  German  rule. 
They  must  therefore  be  freed  from  German  domina- 
tion, and  in  order  to  conform  with  the  Allies'  declar- 
ation of  "no  annexations"  there  can  be  no  question 
of  the  Allied  countries  appropriating  them.  The 
colonies  of  Tropical  Africa,  by  whatever  nation 
they  are  at  present  controlled,  should  be  constituted 
an  independent  African  State,  the  administration  of 
which  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  an  Interna- 
tional Commission  acting  under  the  direction  and 
control  of  the  proposed  League  of  Nations.  Any 
other  territorial  re-adjustments  desired  for  strategic 
or  other  purposes  are  matters  for  negotiation  at  a 
Peace  Conference  and  do  not  constitute  questions 
affecting  the  continuation  of  hostilities. 

The  world  must  be  completely  and  finally  rid  of 
aggressive  militarism,  the  old  costly  and  oppressive 
burden  of  armaments  must  be  thrown  off.  This  can 
best  be  attained  by  a  common  agreement  between  all 


A  PEOPLE'S  PEACE  53 

the  nations  of  the  world  having  for  its  object  the 
strict  limitations  of  war  machinery — human  and 
material.  If  there  is  a  return  to  the  old  competitive 
system  of  armaments  it  will  lead  to  the  inevitable 
issue — a  world  war  even  more  terrible  and  destruc- 
tive than  the  present  war. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  economic  domination 
after  the  war  by  either  group  of  belligerents.  Eco- 
nomic aggression,  like  military  aggression,  is  a 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world,  and  its  effects 
inevitably  fall  most  hardly  upon  the  working  classes. 
Free  intercourse,  international  co-operation,  and  the 
removal  of  tariff  barriers  except  for  revenue  pur- 
poses, should  be  the  basis  of  international  economic 
relations  after  the  war. 

If  we  get  a  peace  which  removes  all  the  old  men- 
aces to  war,  and  settles  the  immediate  problems 
arising  from  the  present  war,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
establish  machinery  to  guarantee  the  permanence 
of  peace.  More  than  for  anything  else  the  people 
yearn  for  security.  This  may  be  obtained  by  the 
setting  up  of  a  supernational  body  composed  of  all 
the  nations  of  the  world :  a  League  of  Nations  with 
judicial  powers  to  consider  and  dispose  of  all  differ- 
ences and  disputes  between  two  or  more  nations. 
This  proposal  means  in  effect  the  practice  of  arbi- 
tration in  the  domain  of  international  affairs.     Its 


54  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

success  in  practice  would  depend  on  the  peoples  who 
were  members  of  the  League;  if  they  are  genuine  in 
their  desire  for  world  security,  if  they  adhere  to  the 
League  in  the  right  spirit  and  continue  firm  in  their 
determination  to  prevent  future  wars,  the  League  of 
Nations  will  prove  to  be  a  real  and  effective  guaran- 
tee of  world  peace  and  security. 


CHAPTER  VI 
NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT 

The  speeches  and  declarations  of  our  leading  states- 
men, delivered  in  the  early  months  of  the  war,  offer 
ample  evidence  of  the  fact  that  this  country 
became  an  active  participant  in  the  gigantic  world- 
struggle  from  only  the  highest  and  best  motives. 
Speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  Prime  Min- 
ister within  a  week  of  the  declaration  of  war,  Mr. 
Asquith  said: — 

If  I  am  asked  what  we  are  fighting  for,  I  reply  in  two 
sentences.  In  the  first  place  to  fulfil  a  solemn  international 
obligation.  .  .  .  Secondly,  we  are  fighting  to  vindicate  the 
principle  that  small  nationalities  are  not  to  be  crushed  in 
defiance  of  international  good  faith.  I  do  not  believe  any 
nation  ever  entered  into  a  great  controversy  with  a  clearer 
conscience  and  stronger  conviction  that  it  is  fighting,  not  for 
aggression,  not  for  the  maintenance  even  of  its  own  selfish 
interests,  but  that  it  is  fighting  in  defence  of  principles  the 
maintenance  of  which  is  vital  to  the  civilisation  of  the  world. 

Such,  then,  in  broad  outline,  were  the  principal  ob- 
jects for  which  the  British  people  unsheathed  the 
sword.     We  assumed  the  role  of  champion  of  the 

55 


56  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

sanctity  of  international  treaties  and  of  the  rights  of 
small  nations,  and  sought  to  impress  upon  the  world 
that  we  desired  neither  territorial  expansion,  nor 
artificial  economic  advantage.  This  high  concep- 
tion of  national  duty  inspired  the  entire  population 
of  the  British  Empire  and  its  Dependencies,  and 
produced  an  unparalleled  display  of  unity  and 
determination.  Our  armed  intervention,  taken  with 
the  full  approval  of  practically  the  whole  nation, 
was  to  be  a  clear  and  emphatic  demonstration  of  our 
stern  and  uncompromising  hostility  to  the  savage 
recourse  to  the  use  of  force,  and  the  wicked  and 
indefensible  violation  of  the  integrity  of  a  neigh- 
bouring state  by  the  German  Government,  which 
confessed  that  it  regarded  its  treaties  as  "scraps  of 
paper,"  and  excused  its  act  of  wilful  aggression 
by  the  plea  that  "necessity  knows  no  law."  And 
to-day,  after  more  than  three  years  of  military 
effort,  unprecedented  in  its  toll  of  sacrifice — human, 
material,  and  financial — the  majority  of  the  people 
of  these  isles  remain  loyal  to  the  high  ideals  and 
principles  which  animated  them  at  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities,  and  are  as  firmly  determined  as  ever  to 
prosecute  the  war  until  these  fundamental  objects 
have  been  attained  by  military,  diplomatic,  and 
political  means. 

British  Labour  is  convinced,  as  it  has  been  from 


NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT  57 

the  beginning,  that  a  victory  for  German  Imperial- 
ism would  be  the  defeat  and  the  destruction  of 
democracy  and  liberty  in  Europe.  In  the  peace 
settlement,  practical  provision  must  be  made  against 
any  future  recurrence  of  the  present  terrible  world- 
calamity  by  the  elimination  of  aggressive  militarism 
from  the  entire  world  and,  what  is  equally 
important,  by  the  removal  of  all  the  old-standing 
menaces  and  the  prevention  of  new  provocations  to 
war. 

The  Allied  nations  are  fighting  against  Germany's 
ambitions  and  immoral  "will  to  power,"  which 
means  German  domination — military,  political,  and 
economic — at  the  expense  of  the  rights  of  other 
peoples.  The  world  will  not  tolerate  German 
domination,  but  it  does  not  wish  for  British  or 
French  or  Allied  domination.  What  it  seeks  is  a 
full  and  practical  recognition  of  the  principles  of 
freedom  and  equality  among  all  nations. 

If  the  suggested  Federation  of  Nations  is  to  have 
any  prospect  of  real  and  permanent  success,  and  if 
the  present  struggle  is  to  be  looked  back  upon  as  the 
war  which  ended  all  war,  everything  must  be  done  to 
prevent  the  division  of  Europe  into  two  separate  and 
hostile  economic  camps  after  the  war.  It  may  safely 
be  said  that  the  latter  eventuality  would  be  fatal  to 
all  our  hopes  of  a  permanent  peace,  and  a  great 


5&  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

betrayal  of  a  righteous  and  noble  cause.  Instead  of 
securing  the  abolition  of  war,  it  would  perpetuate 
international  suspicion,  jealousy,  and  greed,  the  evil 
products  of  economic  antagonisms  which  contributed 
so  largely  to  the  general  causes  of  the  present 
European  conflict,  and  would  lead  inevitably  to  a 
bitter  and  devastating  repetition  of  all  the  losses, 
sorrow,  suffering  and  sacrifice  within  a  few  short 
years. 

It  cannot  be  too  clearly  understood  that  this  is 
not  the  policy  of  organised  Labour  in  this  country, 
nor  of  the  Socialists  of  France,  Russia,  Belgium  or 
Italy,  all  of  whom  have  declared  emphatically  that 
they  do  not  seek  the  political  and  economic  destruc- 
tion of  Germany.  These  representatives  of  the 
working  classes  and  those  in  close  association  with 
them  know  full  well  that  all  attempts  at  economic 
aggression,  whether  by  protective  tariffs  or  capital- 
istic trusts  or  monopolies,  lead  inevitably  to  the 
exploitation  of  the  working  classes.  They  cannot 
regard  with  any  other  feeling  than  one  of  deep  hos- 
tility any  proposal  or  policy  which  seeks  utterly  to 
destroy  the  economic  position  of  any  people  after  the 
war;  and  if  this  is  to  be  the  intention  or  possible 
effect  of  the  Paris  Conference  Resolutions,  then  it 
would  be  well  to  understand  at  once  that  organised 
Labour  in  this  country  is  determined  not  to  allow  the 


NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT  59 

normal  economic  relations  of  nations  to  be  founded 
on  a  policy  of  oppression  and  ostracism,  producing, 
as  it  must,  hostility  and  hatred  after  the  war. 

British  Labour  is  out  to  strangle  and  stamp  under 
foot  Kaiserism  and  Militarism  and  the  "will  to 
world  domination" — and  to  substitute  for  them 
goodwill  and  fraternity:  it  is  not  at  war  with  the 
peoples  of  Germany  and  Austria,  except  in  so  far 
as  they  support  the  war  policy  of  their  autocratic 
rulers.  That  it  appreciates  the  danger  of  an 
economic  struggle  was  clearly  indicated  in  a  decision 
reached  at  the  recent  Trade  Union  Congress  by 
2,339,000  votes  to  278,000,  or  a  majority  of  more 
than  eight  to  one.    The  resolution  was  as  follows: — 

That  the  economic  conditions  created  by  the  War  have  in 
no  way  altered  the  fundamental  truth  that  Free  Trade  be- 
tween the  Nations  is  the  broadest  and  surest  foundation  for 
world-prosperity  and  international  peace  in  the  future,  and 
that  any  departure  from  the  principle  of  Free  Trade  would 
be  detrimental  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Nation  as  a  whole. 

This  overwhelming  majority  shows  very  clearly  that 
British  Industrial  Democracy,  as  represented  by 
Congress,  will  decline  to  subscribe  to  a  policy  pre- 
judicial to  the  economic  interests  of  our  own  work- 
ing folk,  and  one  that  is  calculated  to  prevent  the 
definite  and  essential  reconciliation  of  free  democra- 
cies.    Therefore,  the  proposal  to  cripple  Germany 


60  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

financially  and  to  render  her  impotent  commercially 
by  a  ruthless  trade  war,  may  be  expected  to  receive 
the  determined  opposition  of  the  British  Labour  and 
Socialist  Movement.  Once  the  British  people  as  a 
whole  realise  the  true  inwardness  of  such  a  policy, 
how  far  it  is  out  of  accord  with  their  own  cherished 
aims  in  this  war  as  declared  by  Mr.  Asquith  in  his 
Guildhall,  Dublin,  and  Cardiff  speeches,  and  op- 
posed to  the  spirit  of  international  co-operation  and 
goodwill,  they  will  reject  it  as  one  inspired  by  a  spirit 
of  revenge,  and  consequently  a  fatal  impediment  to 
the  attainment  and  maintenance  of  world  peace. 

In  the  interests  of  world  peace,  therefore,  the 
Paris  Resolutions,  so  far  as  they  are  intended  to 
form  the  basis  of  a  policy  of  organised  systematic 
commercial  and  economic  boycotting,  which  aims 
at  the  destruction  of  German  commerce,  must  be 
strenuously  opposed.  They  would  provide  a  new 
standing  menace  to  a  healthy  internationalism  and 
to  the  future  peace  of  the  world,  and  impose  further 
burdens  upon  the  consumers  in  the  respective  coun- 
tries. 

If  we  have  amongst  us  a  class  of  politicians  who 
regard  the  German  people  as  rightful  spoils  to  be 
economically  exploited  and  oppressed  after  the  con- 
clusion of  hostilities,  let  them  cease  talking  of  a 
fight  to  a  finish,  for  no  mere  military  victory  can 


NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT  61 

ever  be  the  final  stage  of  the  struggle ;  it  would  only 
mean  a  transfer  of  the  venue,  with  a  change  of 
weapons  from  the  military  to  the  economic.  But 
British  Labour,  and  especially  the  organised  section, 
will  refuse  to  regard  the  German  and  Austrian 
people  in  that  light. 

The  fundamental  purpose  of  British  Labour  in 
continuing  its  support  of  the  war  is  the  hope  that 
it  may  influence  the  development  of  world  demo- 
cracy. In  order  that  this  may  be  accomplished, 
it  is  determined  that  the  peace  terms  shall  be  just 
and  honourable,  and  such  as  shall  erect  no  barriers 
that  will  prevent  the  realisation  of  these  high  ideals. 
A  spirit  of  revenge,  if  introduced,  would  vitiate  the 
findings  of  any  peace  conference  and  make  a  demo- 
cratic peace  an  impossibility.  Moreover,  British 
Labour  appreciates  the  difficulty  that  has  arisen 
already  by  the  promulgation  of  the  suggested  policy 
of  commercial  repression  and  its  effect  in  prolonging 
the  war.  France,  Russia,  and  America  all  provide 
evidence  that  the  objects  and  aims  of  England  are 
suspected;  consequently,  we  have  persistent  de- 
mands for  a  restatement  of  our  position.  We  say 
to  the  German  people  that  if  they  want  peace  they 
must  make  themselves  masters  in  their  own  house, 
that  they  must  destroy  the  Kaiser's  power  for  evil 
and  that  they  must  come  into  line  with  the  free 


62  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

democracies  of  the  world;  but  we  increase  their 
already  serious  difficulties  by  intimating  that  when 
they  have  succeeded  they  are  not  to  be  a  free  people 
but  are  to  be  commercially  and  economically  iso- 
lated. What  is  to  be  thought  of  a  statesmanship 
which  invites  the  German  people  to  form  part  of  a 
Federation  of  Nations  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
world  peace,  and  at  the  same  time  proclaims  the  in- 
tention of  constructing  a  Federation  of  Allies  for  no 
other  object  than  the  setting  up  of  a  commercial 
boycott  of  Germany?  Such  a  proposal,  under  all 
the  terrible  experiences  of  the  war,  may  appeal  to  a 
section  of  the  people  influenced  by  the  wounded  feel- 
ings of  to-day  without  regard  to  the  consequences 
of  the  morrow ;  but  when  the  full  effects  are  realised 
they  will  be  recognised  as  not  only  dangerous  but 
criminal,  and  the  sooner  they  are  officially  repudi- 
ated the  better  it  will  be  for  the  Allied  Cause. 

These  contradictory  After-War  Proposals,  and 
the  suspicion  and  doubt  as  to  where  Britain  now 
stands,  only  render  it  more  imperative  that  our 
aims  and  objects  should  be  clearly  restated  in 
order  that  the  world  may  know  why  it  is  we  con- 
tinue to  fight.  General  Smuts  has  stated  that  the 
war  is  already  won,  and  all  that  is  required  is  for  the 
Allies  to  sit  tight  until  Germany  acknowledges  her 
defeat.     If  that  is  so,  how  important  it  is  that  we 


NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT  63 

should  be  satisfied  that  the  struggle  is  continued  only 
because  of  failure  to  obtain  the  ideal  peace  settle- 
ment, and  not  because  of  misunderstandings  as  to 
our  terms.  It  should  not  be  difficult  to  give  to 
the  country  the  assurance  that  we  continue  to  re- 
main loyal  to  the  position  as  expressed  by  Mr. 
Asquith  in  1914,  and  that  we  are  fighting  neither 
for  conquest  nor  economic  boycott. 

We  do  not  lose  sight  of  that  aspect  of  the  economic 
question  as  it  affects  our  overseas  Dominions  and 
Dependencies,  for  we  consider  that  without  repres- 
sion and  revenge  it  would  be  possible  to  make  such 
arrangements  as  would  improve  the  relationship  be- 
tween them  and  the  Mother  Country,  both  with  re- 
gard to  food  supplies,  raw  materials  and  essential 
industries,  without  a  revolution  in  our  fiscal  system. 
On  this  point,  Sir  Robert  Borden,  speaking  as 
Prime  Minister  of  Canada,  has  said  that  the  people 
of  Canada  would  not  desire  the  people  of  the  United 
Kingdom  to  change  their  fiscal  policy  for  the  pur- 
pose alone  of  giving  a  preference  to  the  producers 
of  Canada,  especially  if  the  proposed  fiscal  changes 
would  involve  any  injustice  or  be  regarded  as  op- 
pressive by  any  considerable  portion  of  the  people 
of  the  United  Kingdom.  After  calling  attention  to 
the  Imperial  Preference  Resolution  approved  by  the 
Imperial  War  Cabinet,  which  runs: — 


64  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

The  time  has  arrived  when  all  possible  encouragement 
should  be  given  to  the  development  of  Imperial  resources, 
and  especially  to  the  making  the  Empire  independent  of 
other  countries  in  respect  of  food  supplies,  raw  materials 
and  essential  industries.  With  these  objects  in  view  this 
Conference  expresses  itself  in  favour  of : — 

1.  The  principle  that  each  part  of  the  Empire,  having 
due  regard  to  the  interests  of  our  Allies,  shall  give  specially 
favourable  treatment  and  facilities  to  the  produce  and  manu- 
facture of  other  parts  of  the  Empire. 

2.  Arrangements  by  which  intending  emigrants  from  the 
United  Kingdom  may  be  induced  to  settle  in  countries  under 
the  British  flag. 

the  Canadian  Premier  continued: — 

I  should  say  at  once  that  this  resolution  does  not  neces- 
sarily propose,  or  even  look  to,  any  change  in  the  fiscal 
arrangements  of  the  United  Kingdom.  It  does  not  involve 
taxation  of  food ;  it  does  not  involve  the  taxation  of  anything. 
As  far  as  the  fiscal  system  of  the  United  Kingdom  is  con- 
cerned, I  followed  when  in  England  precisely  the  same  course 
that  I  have  carried  out  in  this  Parliament,  and  in  this  country 
' — I  decline  to  interfere  in  matters  which  are  the  subject  of 
domestic  control  and  concern  in  the  United  Kingdom.  I 
decline  to  invite  them  to  change  their  fiscal  policy.  These 
matters  are  within  their  control,  as  our  fiscal  policy  is  within 
ours.  And  I  would  go  further,  and  say  that  the  people  of 
Canada  would  not  desire  the  people  of  the  United  Kingdom 
to  change  their  fiscal  policy  for  the  purpose  alone  of  giving  a 
preference  to  the  producers  of  this  country,  especially  if  the 
proposed  fiscal  changes  should  involve  any  injustice,  or  should 
be  regarded  as  oppressive  by  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
people  of  the  United  Kingdom.  But  what  this  proposal  looks 
to,  as  I  understand  it,  is  this — that  we  can  within  the  Empire 


NO  ECONOMIC  BOYCOTT  65 

get  better  and  cheaper  facilities  of  communication  than  we 
have  enjoyed  up  to  the  present  time.  That  I  believe,  is  the 
line  along  which  the  change  indicated  will  proceed.  The 
question  of  transportation  has  been  a  very  live  one,  a  very 
important  one  to  the  producers  of  this  country,  especially 
those  of  the  western  provinces.  We  know  that  before  the 
commencement  of  war  the  cost  of  transportation  across  the 
Atlantic  increased  twofold  or  threefold.  There  was  some- 
times a  dearth  of  ships.  I  hope  and  believe  that  there  will 
be  concerted  action  and  co-operation  between  the  Government 
of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  Governments  of  the  Overseas 
Dominions,  by  which  speedier,  better  and  more  economical 
transportation  will  be  provided  between  the  Mother  Country 
and  the  Overseas  Dominions  and  between  the  Overseas  Do- 
minions themselves.  So  that,  in  this  light,  I  am  confident 
that  the  resolution  passed  by  the  Conference  will  receive 
favourable  consideration  by  the  people  of  this  country. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  clear  recognition  of  the  posi- 
tion of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  possibility  of 
some  arrangement  being  made  which  would  be  ac- 
ceptable to  Canada  and  other  Dominions  without 
carrying  with  it  any  risk  of  injury  to  our  own  people. 
British  Labour  desires  to  maintain  the  policy  of  the 
Open  Door  because  this  policy  is  more  beneficial  to 
the  workers  than  a  policy  of  commercial  restriction 
and  isolation.  Moreover,  it  believes  that  it  would 
afford  immense  possibilities  in  the  way  of  Govern- 
ment action  and  organisation  having  for  their  ob- 
ject the  safeguarding  of  British  industry  and  com- 
merce, and  the  highest  development  of  the  resources 


66  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

of  every  part  of  the  Empire,  which  could  be  secured 
without  imposing  new  and  heavy  burdens  on  the 
working  classes.  Instead  of  commercial  antagon- 
ism and  repression  it  desires  a  full  recognition  of 
the  need  for  concerted  international  arrangements, 
having  for  their  object  a  general  improvement  of 
working  conditions  of  labour,  wages,  etc.,  by  means 
of  international  factory  legislation  to  operate  in 
every  country,  whereby  a  greater  measure  of  social 
and  economic  contentment  may  be  secured  for  the 
workers  of  all  nations,  and  safeguards  imposed 
against  their  being  economically  exploited  or  op- 
pressed. The  future  must  be  an  improvement  on  the 
present  and  the  past,  but  no  improvement  can  be 
obtained  from  an  economic  war,  because  this  double- 
edged  weapon  inflicts  fatal  wounds  on  all  peoples. 
Of  this  Labour  is  convinced,  that  a  world  peace 
which  is  broadly  based  on  the  expressed  will  of  free 
democracies  cannot  be  assisted  by  a  temporary  or 
perpetual  economic  war.  And  a  peace  which  does 
not  properly  recognise  the  natural  economic  rights  of 
all  peoples  will  be  neither  democratic  nor  lasting. 


CHAPTER  VII 
REVOLUTION  OR  COMPROMISE? 

Revolution  is  a  word  of  evil  omen.  It  calls  up  a 
vision  of  barricades  in  the  streets  and  blood  in  the 
gutters.  No  responsible  person,  however  deter- 
mined he  or  she  may  be  to  effect  a  complete  trans- 
formation of  society,  can  contemplate  such  a  possi- 
bility without  horror.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what 
the  future  holds,  but  many  of  us  believe  that  man- 
kind is  so  weary  of  violence  and  bloodshed  that  if 
the  coming  social  revolution  necessarily  involved 
armed  insurrection  it  would  find  no  general  sanc- 
tion. To  the  British  people  in  particular  the  pros- 
pect of  a  period  of  convulsive  effort  of  this  character 
is  wholly  without  appeal.  Revolution  in  this  sense 
is  alien  to  the  British  character.  Only  in  the  last 
resort  and  as  a  final  desperate  expedient  have  the 
people  of  this  country  consented  to  employ  force  to 
attain  their  ends.  There  have  been  times,  of  course, 
when  the  active  opposition  or  dead  inertia  of  the  rul- 
ing classes  have  not  been  overcome  until  the  people 
have  shown  that  they  were  bent  on  obtaining  their 

67 


68  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

ends  even  at  the  cost  of  bloodshed.  These  occa- 
sions have  not  been  numerous.  They  have  been 
more  in.the  nature  of  spontaneous  popular  uprisings 
than  of  deliberately  planned  insurrections.  The 
British  people  have  no  aptitude  for  conspiracy. 
They  are  capable  of  vigorous  action,  of  persistent 
and  steady  agitation  year  in  and  year  out,  of  stub- 
born and  resolute  pressure  against  which  nothing 
can  stand;  they  have  their  moods  of  anger  which 
may  find  expression  in  sporadic  revolts:  but  they 
do  not  organise  revolutions  or  plot  the  seizure  of 
power  by  a  sudden  coup  d'etat.  The  growth  of 
political  democracy  among  us  has  been  marked  by 
few  violent  crises.  Successive  extensions  of  the 
franchise  have  been  won  mainly  by  agitations  of  a 
peaceful  kind,  accompanied  in  only  a  few  cases  by 
rioting,  and  organised  revolution  in  the  continental 
sense,  for  political  or  social  ends,  has  been  exceed- 
ingly rare  in  our  history. 

It  would  be  idle,  however,  to  deny  that  the  temper 
of  democracy  after  the  war  will  not  be  so  placable  as 
it  has  hitherto  been.  Whether  we  like  it  or  fear  it, 
we  have  to  recognise  that  in  the  course  of  the  last 
three  and  a  half  years  people  have  become  habitu- 
ated to  thoughts  of  violence.  They  have  seen  force 
employed  on  an  unprecedented  scale  as  an  instru- 


REVOLUTION  OR  COMPROMISE?     69 

ment  of  policy.  Unless  we  are  very  careful  these 
ideas  will  rule  the  thoughts  of  masses  of  the  people 
in  the  post-war  period  of  reconstruction.  The  idea 
that  by  forceful  methods  the  organised  democracy 
can  find  a  short  cut  to  the  attainment  of  its  aims 
will  have  its  attractions  for  men  of  unstable 
temperament,  impatient  of  the  inevitable  set-backs 
which  we  are  bound  to  encounter  if  we  work  along 
constitutional  lines.  Let  that  idea  stand  unchal- 
lenged by  the  leaders  of  democracy,  and  we  shall  be 
faced  with  graver  perils  than  any  that  have  con- 
fronted us  in  past  times.  Never  before  have  we 
had  such  vast  numbers  of  the  population  skilled  in 
the  use  of  arms,  disciplined,  inured  to  danger,  ac- 
customed to  act  together  under  orders.  When  the 
war  ends  this  country  and  every  other  will  be  flooded 
with  hardy  veterans  of  the  great  campaigns. 
Among  them  will  be  thousands  of  men  who  have 
exercised  authority  over  their  fellows  in  actual  war- 
fare, and  who  will  be  capable  of  assuming  leader- 
ship again  if  insurrectionary  movements  come  into 
existence.  We  may  be  warned  by  a  perception  of 
these  facts  that  if  barricades  are  indeed  likely  to  be 
erected  in  our  streets  they  will  be  manned  by  men 
who  have  learned  how  to  fight  and  not  by  ill-dis- 
ciplined mobs  unversed  in  the  use  of  modern  wea- 


70  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

pons,  likely  to  be  easily  overcome  by  trained  troops. 
Revolution,  if  revolution  is  indeed  to  be  forced  upon 
democracy,  will  be  veritable  civil  war. 

The  prospect  of  social  convulsions  on  this  scale 
is  enough  to  appal  the  stoutest  heart.  Yet  this  is 
the  alternative  that  unmistakably  confronts  us,  if  we 
turn  aside  from  the  path  of  ordered  social  change 
by  constitutional  methods.  The  natural  bias  of  or- 
ganised Labour  lies  in  the  direction  of  smooth,  or- 
derly progress.  When  a  deadlock  is  reached,  as 
often  happens  in  industrial  disputes,  the  first  appeal 
is  always  to  the  weapons  of  conciliation  and  arbi- 
tration. Negotiations  usually  end  in  a  compromise : 
but  the  compromise  generally  represents  a  step  for- 
ward. Labour  is  sometimes  pictured  as  a  blind 
giant,  but  unlike  Samson  it  has  sufficient  wisdom  to 
realise  that  in  pulling  down  the  pillars  of  the  temple 
it  may  be  crushed  beneath  the  ruins  along  with  its 
enemies.  When  the  leaders  of  democracy  speak  of 
Revolution — thereby  causing  much  alarm  to  ladies 
like  Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward — they  do  not  therefore 
contemplate  any  act  of  blind  violence  comparable 
to  the  brave  stupidity  of  the  Philistines'  captive: 
they  intend  simply  to  warn  the  dominant  classes  that 
any  attempt  to  keep  democracy  fettered  and  sub- 
ordinate is  foredoomed  to  failure.  By  peaceable 
methods,  or  by  direct  assault,  society  is  going  to  be 


REVOLUTION  OR  COMPROMISE?     71 

i.rought  under  democratic  control.  And  the  choice 
of  method  does  not  primarily  rest  with  democracy: 
it  lies  rather  with  the  classes  who  own  the  ma- 
chinery of  production  and  control  the  machinery  of 
the  State  to  decide  whether  necessary  changes  are  to 
be  peaceably  introduced  on  the  basis  of  willing  co- 
operation, or  resisted  to  the  last  ditch.  Conflicts 
will  inevitably  arise  between  the  privileged  classes 
and  the  great  mass  of  the  people  as  to  whether  this 
or  that  specific  reform  is  opportune  or  expedient  at 
a  given  moment.  All  that  I  am  concerned  with  for 
the  moment  is  the  temper  in  which  these  reforms  are 
to  be  approached — whether  with  a  disposition  to 
agree  after  full  and  frank  discussion  of  the  interests 
involved  and  the  purpose  to  be  achieved,  or  in  a 
mood  of  sullen  resistance  hardening  into  a  stupid 
refusal  to  discuss  the  question  of  reform  at  all.  The 
latter  mood  will  be  fatal  to  our  hopes  of  effecting  a 
great  and  beneficent  reconstruction  of  society  by 
political  methods. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  before  the  war  there 
was  a  visible  tendency  on  the  party  of  a  section  of 
the  people  to  resent  the  slow  working  of  the  machin- 
ery of  Parliament.  The  war  has  not  entirely  oblit- 
erated our  memory  of  the  feverish  industrial  unrest 
which  was  such  a  significant  feature  of  the  situation 
in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  outbreak  of 


72  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

war.  There  were  many  causes  for  it.  But  no  one 
will  deny  that  much  of  the  trouble  arose  from  the 
belief  sedulously  fostered  by  an  active  group  of 
propagandists  in  the  industrial  arena  that  it  was 
hopeless  to  expect  Parliament  to  take  any  interest 
in  the  workers'  grievances.  Political  action  by  the 
workers  themselves  was  systematically  discredited 
and  discounted.  The  mass  of  the  organised  work- 
ing class  movement  never  lost  faith  in  the  Labour 
Party,  and  made  full  allowance  for  the  difficulties 
under  which  their  Parliamentary  representatives 
worked.  It  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  propaganda 
of  "direct  action"  among  the  workers  tended  seri- 
ously to  undermine  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  political 
methods.  The  opportunity  of  the  anti-parliamen- 
tarian propagandists  will  recur  if  in  the  immediate 
future  the  Labour  Party,  by  reason  of  its  own  weak- 
ness or  the  stubborn  resistance  of  other  parties  and 
classes,  is  unable  to  fulfil  the  expectations  of  its 
followers.  One  good  reason  for  beginning  now  to 
build  up  a  strong  democratic  party  in  Parliament, 
with  a  programme  of  social  and  economic  reforms 
carefully  thought  out  in  advance,  is  that  such  a 
party,  having  the  confidence  of  the  organised  move- 
ment and  conscious  of  its  strength,  will  be  able  to 
prove  that  political  methods  are  effective,  and  that 
Parliament  can  be  made  to  legislate  for  the  good 


REVOLUTION  OR  COMPROMISE?     73 

of  the  people  as  a  whole  rather  than  for  the  benefit 
of  particular  classes.  The  Labour  Party  can  re- 
habilitate Parliament  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  who 
have  been  wearied  by  the  unreal  strife  of  the  ortho- 
dox parties,  and  by  the  cumbrous  working  of  the 
Parliamentary  machine  in  dealing  with  pressing  and 
urgent  questions  of  reform.  The  Labour  Party  sets 
out  to  prove  by  actual  experiment  and  achievement 
that  the  Democratic  State  of  to-morrow  can  be  estab- 
lished without  an  intervening  period  of  violent  up- 
heaval and  dislocation. 

The  Revolution  which  the  Labour  Party  seeks  to 
bring  about  in  this  country  will  not  be  effected  by 
means  of  bombs  and  bayonets.  It  will  be,  however, 
quite  as  thorough-going  in  its  results  as  any  violent 
convulsion  involving  the  use  of  armed  force  can 
posssibly  be.  It  means  a  radical  change  in  the  atti- 
tude of  Parliament  towards  questions  of  social  re- 
form, a  speeding  up  of  the  legislative  machine,  a 
resolute  independence  on  the  part  of  the  Labour 
Party  in  Parliament.  It  means  further  a  complete 
overhauling  of  the  administrative  machine.  Ex- 
perience has  shown  us  that  the  great  administrative 
services,  swathed  in  red  tape,  hampered  by  tradi- 
tion, conservative  by  instinct,  saturated  with  class 
prejudice,  are  a  more  effective  check  upon  the  re- 
forming impulse  than  even  a  Parliament  dominated 


74  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

by  aristocratic  and  capitalist  influences.  We  have 
no  use  for  the  Circumlocution  Office.  We  want  to 
see  the  Civil  Service  democratised.  The  Diplomatic 
Service,  in  particular,  is  an  aristocratic  preserve 
which  offers  no  opportunity  for  a  career  to  any  man 
unless  he  possesses  a  private  income  of  at  least  £400 
a  year,  however  well  qualified  he  may  otherwise 
be.  The  abolition  of  such  a  barrier  is  a  democratic 
duty.  In  addition,  we  desire  to  bring  the  Foreign 
Office  more  directly  under  the  control  of  Parliament, 
and  to  give  the  peoples'  representatives  larger  powers 
of  criticism  in  regard  to  foreign  policy.  So  also 
with  other  Government  Departments:  we  believe 
that  their  efficiency,  energy,  and  enthusiasm  for  the 
public  welfare  will  be  greatly  increased  by  an  in- 
fusion of  the  spirit  of  democracy.  Labour's  aim  is 
to  establish  democratic  control  over  all  the  machinery 
of  State.  It  can  be  done  without  a  violent  break 
with  the  past.  Labour  desires  to  make  a  swift  and 
smooth  transition  to  the  new  order,  working  along 
constitutional  lines,  not  seeking  to  introduce  innova- 
tions for  the  sake  of  novelty,  but  solely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  promoting  political  and  social  liberty  and 
putting  an  end  to  oligarchical  government  and  the 
domination  of  one  class  by  another.  To  effect  this 
transformation  of  the  legislative  and  administrative 
machine  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  spill  blood. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
FREEDOM 

It  is  a  tragic  paradox  that  in  the  great  struggle  for 
freedom  and  democracy  the  British  people  have  been 
required  to  surrender  many  of  their  cherished  liber- 
ties. The  nation's  willingness  to  submit  to  restric- 
tions imposed  by  authority  upon  the  right  of  demo- 
cratic self-determination  which  has  been  its  chief 
pride  and  boast  for  many  centuries  is  a  more  con- 
vincing proof  of  its  resolute  intention  to  achieve  vic- 
tory than  even  the  sacrificial  service  of  the  men  in 
the  field  and  the  workers  at  home.  It  is  question- 
able, indeed,  whether  many  of  the  limitations  upon 
freedom  were  necessary;  but  it  is  indisputable  that 
only  a  people  motived  by  the  purest  patriotism,  and 
resolved  to  allow  nothing  to  weaken  the  national 
will,  would  have  accepted  them.  At  any  other  time 
the  State's  encroachment  upon  the  domain  of  private 
liberty  would  have  been  instantly  challenged.  It 
was  not  because  the  British  people  were  convinced 
that  the  surrender  of  democratic  rights  was  neces- 
sary that  they  yielded  without  a  struggle,  but  be- 

75 


76  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

cause  they  realised  they  could  not  prosecute  two 
wars  simultaneously.  Having  resolved  to  defeat 
Prussianisra  abroad  because  it  menaced  the  freedom 
of  the  whole  world,  they  tolerated  the  curtailment  of 
their  liberties  at  home  as  a  relatively  smaller  danger 
with  which  they  could  more  conveniently  deal  when 
the  bigger  peril  was  removed.  Reaction  has  made 
great  strides  during  the  war.  The  people  know  that 
they  are  in  the  grip  of  reaction.  But  it  would  be  a 
disastrous  error  to  conclude  that  democracy  has  been 
so  firmly  fettered  that  it  will  not  be  able  to  shake 
off  its  bonds  when  the  hour  comes  for  it  to  reckon 
with  its  domestic  enemies.  The  very  submission  of 
the  people,  their  acceptance  of  one  outrageous  re- 
striction after  another,  may  lead  the  reactionaries  to 
think  their  policy  has  succeeded:  when  the  greater 
preoccupation  of  the  war  is  over  they  will  perhaps 
see  how  completely  it  has  failed. 

What  are  the  reactionary  encroachments  upon  lib- 
erty against  which  democracy  may  justly  protest? 
We  do  not  complain  so  much  of  the  formal  restric- 
tions imposed  upon  the  people  of  this  country  on  the 
plea  of  national  necessity,  but  of  the  subtler  in- 
roads upon  both  private  and  public  liberty  through 
a  reactionary  and  oppressive  interpretation  of  the 
long  series  of  regulations  introduced  during  the  war. 
Take  first  the  freedom  of  the  press.     An  intelligent 


FREEDOM  77 

censorship  which  confined  its  activities  to  the  sup- 
pression of  news  that  might  assist  the  military  effort 
of  the  enemy  would  be  regarded  as  performing  a 
legitimate  duty:  but  the  military  censorship  has 
developed  into  a  wonderful  political  engine  which 
enables  the  authorities  systematically  to  control  the 
press.  It  enables  the  executive  not  merely  to  con- 
trol opinion  but  to  manufacture  it.  On  the  one 
hand  it  prevents  free  discussion  of  questions  of 
public  policy ;  on  the  other  it  guides  the  public  mind 
by  means  of  a  steady  stream  of  artful  suggestion 
and  official  "information"  manipulated  and  col- 
oured in  accordance  with  official  views.  The  seiz- 
ure of  pamphlets,  the  suppression  of  newspapers,  the 
attempt  to  bring  under  the  survey  of  the  censorship 
every  leaflet,  pamphlet,  and  printed  sheet  dealing 
however  remotely  with  questions  of  war  and  peace, 
are  only  additional  illustrations  of  this  dangerous 
development  by  which  truth  is  rationed,  political 
opinion  made  to  order  in  government  factories,  and 
an  artificial  unity  created  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
denying  expression  to  dissident  views.  The  prac- 
tical denial  of  free  speech  and  the  right  of  public 
meeting,  both  by  direct  prohibition  and  by  the  far 
worse  method  of  permitting  meetings  to  be  broken 
up  by  organised  violence,  is  another  development 
against  which  democracy  is  bound  to  protest.     Still 


78  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

more  sinister  is  the  growtH  of  espionage  and  police 
inquisition:  the  adoption  of  continental  methods 
of  surveillance  represents  an  invasion  of  private 
life  by  the  agents  of  authority  which  before  the  war 
one  would  have  confidently  declared  this  country 
would  never  tolerate.  The  right  of  asylum,  under 
which  many  political  refugees  sought  shelter  from 
the  harsh  oppression  of  their  own  Governments,  has 
been  destroyed.  The  right  of  trial  by  Jury  and  of 
public  trial  has  been  virtually  superseded,  and  the 
detention  of  suspected  persons  without  trial  and 
without  formal  charge  being  made  against  them 
shows  how  far  the  executive  has  gone  in  defiance  of 
the  constitutional  safeguards  which  protected  the 
person  and  property  of  British  citizens.  New  tri- 
bunals, unknown  to  the  British  legal  system,  and 
answerable  only  to  the  Government,  have  been  set 
up  for  dealing  with  new  offences,  established  prin- 
ciples of  our  juridical  system,  well  attested  rights  of 
accused  persons,  have  been  arbitrarily  set  aside. 

Before  the  war  the  workers  enjoyed  a  considerable 
measure  of  personal  and  collective  freedom,  as 
workers  not  simply  as  citizens :  they  were  not  bound 
to  one  employer  or  confined  to  one  district,  but 
might  go  where  the  highest  wages  invited  and  in  the 
last  resort  could  enforce  their  claims  for  improved 
conditions  by  ceasing  to  work.     These  rights  have 


FREEDOM  79 

disappeared.  Many  workshop  practices  and  cus- 
toms which  protected  the  workmen  have  been  aban- 
doned. That  in  the  latter  instance  the  workmen 
and  their  representatives  have  agreed  to  these  limi- 
tations and  restrictions  does  not  weaken  the  asser- 
tion that  they  represent  a  serious  diminution  of 
the  workers'  freedom.  With  a  patriotic  self-devo- 
tion beyond  all  praise  the  organised  workers  have 
consented  to  abandon  many  of  the  guarantees  which 
they  had  devised  to  protect  them  from  the  rapacity 
of  the  employers;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
manner  in  which  their  readiness  to  sacrifice  their 
rights,  including  their  right  to  decide  for  whom 
they  shall  work  and  under  what  conditions,  has 
been  exploited  in  the  interest  of  reaction,  has  given 
rise  to  much  suspicion  and  discontent.  This  very 
human  reaction  against  all  these  legislative  and  ad- 
ministrative experiments  is  the  measure  of  their  fail- 
ure. It  proves  that  they  have  gone  too  far,  are  too 
harsh  and  oppressive  in  their  working.  They  have 
given  the  workers  a  sense  of  being  harried,  con- 
trolled, and  disposed  of  without  any  reference  to 
their  own  wishes  and  frequently  against  their  will. 
That  is  the  root  of  the  resentment  and  distrust 
which  the  organised  workers  now  show.  It  is  the 
reason  why  they  scrutinise  with  Jealous  suspicion 
every  proposal  put  forward  by  the  Government  for 


80  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

the  further  organisation  of  the  nation's  reserves  of 
man-power. 

Not  only  the  steadily  deepening  revolt  of  the  or- 
ganised workers  but  the  equally  marked  degener- 
ation of  public  moral  and  the  loss  of  popular  confi- 
dence in  the  Government,  must  be  taken  as  further 
evidence  of  the  total  practical  failure  of  this  policy 
of  repression  and  regimentation.  In  the  early  days 
of  the  war,  those  who,  like  myself,  felt  that  the 
righteousness  of  our  cause  justified  and  indeed  de- 
manded every  sacrifice,  accepted  the  restrictions 
which  the  Government  proposed  as  a  necessary  ex- 
pedient for  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war; 
and  we  have  to  bear  our  share  of  responsibility  if 
we  failed  to  perceive  every  possibility  of  abuse 
underlying  the  legal  phrases  in  which  the  proposals 
were  embodied.  But  democracy  in  war  time  is  at  a 
disadvantage  in  dealing  with  abuses  or  excesses  of 
authority;  its  moral  simplicity  and  singleness  of 
aim  put  democracy  in  the  power  of  its  enemies.  The 
same  qualities  will  deliver  it  when  the  lesson  of 
this  experience  of  what  reaction  can  do,  how  craftily 
the  enemy  of  freedom  can  plot  the  destruction  of 
popular  liberties  in  the  very  hour  when  the  people 
are  making  unprecedented  sacrifices  in  order  to  pre- 
serve freedom  and  extend  its  boundaries,  has  been 


FREEDOM  81 

learned.  The  people's  sacrifice  of  their  rights  and 
liberties  was  sanctioned  by  motives  of  the  purest 
patriotism.  Those  of  us  who  counselled  and  en- 
couraged the  sacrifice  when  authoritative  voices 
warned  us  that  only  so  could  the  war  be  won  have 
no  reason  to  be  ashamed :  the  shame  rather  lies  with 
those  who  under  cover  of  the  plea  of  national  neces- 
sity formulated  regulations  that  have  been  a  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  reaction  for  the  subversion  of  civil 
liberty. 

While  we  recognise  that  the  logic  of  military  de- 
fence is  the  logic  of  restriction,  of  authority  against 
liberty,  and  acknowledge  the  difficulty  of  defining 
the  limits  of  such  control  as  a  Government  must 
claim  when  a  nation  is  at  war,  we  proclaim  that  the 
democratic  ideal  of  freedom  is  not  the  freedom  of  a 
people  in  barracks  or  a  besieged  city,  but  of  equality 
and  mutual  service.  Militarist  authority  implies 
subservience  and  regimentation.  Democracy  de- 
mands the  right  of  self-determination  and  the  op- 
portunity to  realise  through  its  own  culture  and  in- 
stitutions the  fullest  possibilities  of  self-develop- 
ment. The  era  of  democratic  freedom  will  not  be 
inaugurated  merely  by  a  suspension  of  the  war  re- 
strictions. It  will  be  the  function  of  the  builders  of 
the  new  order  of  society  to  discover  the  influences 


82  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

that  constrain  freedom  and  by  combined  effort  to 
destroy  them.  Democracy  asserts  that  brute  force 
should  not  be  the  arbiter  in  the  relation  of  States, 
and  therefore  seeks  to  embody  the  principle  of  con- 
ciliation in  international  institutions.  As  the  spirit 
of  democracy  will  inform  these  international  insti- 
tutions and  national  self-determination  is  the  guid- 
ing principle  they  will  be  the  protectors  of  national 
freedom;  and  democracy,  which  is  nourished  on 
publicity,  will  demand  that  the  free  air  of  public 
discussion  shall  penetrate  the  obscurities  of  diplo- 
macy. We  realise  further  that  there  can  be  no  true 
freedom  so  long  as  property  and  power  are  concen- 
trated in  the  hands  of  a  few,  and  the  democratic 
watchword  for  the  struggle  of  the  future  is 
"Through  Equality  to  Freedom."  We  look  to  the 
democratisation  of  political  institutions  through  a 
still  wider  extension  of  the  franchise,  the  abolition 
of  secret  political  funds,  derived  from  the  traffic  in 
honours,  and  to  the  growth  of  industrial  democracy, 
to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  freedom  in  this  land, 
and  to  give  the  individual  citizen  a  deeper  sense  of 
power  and  responsibility  as  the  attributes  of  a  free 
man.  We  know,  too,  that  as  the  price  of  liberty  is 
perpetual  vigilance,  so  its  surest  safeguard  is  the 
passion  for  liberty  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  women. 
To  save  this  nation  from  the  moral  and  political 


FREEDOM  83 

servitude  which  makes  the  masses  of  people  helpless 
agents  of  their  own  destruction  and  puts  into  the 
hands  of  the  few  more  than  the  power  of  life  and 
death  is  the  settled  resolve  of  organised  democracy. 


CHAPTER  IX 
VICTORY 

Victory  is  a  word  on  the  lips  of  many  people.  It  is 
a  word  which  the  statesmen  of  the  Allied  countries 
and  of  the  Central  Empires  alike  use  quite  freely, 
but  with  a  very  restricted  application.  To  most  the 
meaning  of  victory  is  limited  to  a  striking  military 
success.  There  is  a  grave  danger  that  the  moral  as 
well  as  the  social  implications  of  victory  may  be 
forgotten  or  ignored.  Any  victory,  however  spec- 
tacular and  dramatic  in  a  military  sense  it  may  be, 
which  falls  short  of  the  realisation  of  the  ideals  with 
which  we  entered  the  war,  will  not  be  a  victory  but 
a  defeat.  We  strive  for  victory  because  we  want  to 
end  war  altogether,  not  merely  to  prove  the  superior- 
ity of  British  arms  over  those  of  Germany.  We  con- 
tinue the  struggle,  dreadful  though  the  cost  of  it  has 
become,  because  we  have  to  enforce  reparation  for 
a  great  wrong  perpetrated  upon  a  small  unoffending 
nation,  to  liberate  subject  peoples  and  enable  them 
to  live  under  a  form  of  government  of  their  own 

84 


VICTORY  85 

choosing,  and  to  destroy,  not  a  great  nation,  but  a 
militarist  autocracy  which  had  deliberately  planned 
war  without  consideiring  the  interests  either  of  their 
own  people  or  of  the  European  Commonwealth  of 
which  they  w^ere  a  part. 

For  the  people  of  this  country  these  are  still  the 
objects  of  the  war.  The  ideals  with  which  we 
entered  the  struggle  have  not  been  lowered.  On 
the  contrary  the  aims  of  the  people,  the  ends  for 
which  they  are  prepared  still  to  suffer  and  serve, 
obscured  though  they  may  be  by  the  clamant  im- 
perialism of  the  dominant  class,  have  become  a 
rooted  resolve.  They  will  not  suffer  the  war  aims 
of  this  country  to  be  transformed  into  a  pro- 
gramme of  conquest  and  annexation.  They  will 
sanction  only  such  territorial  and  political  changes 
in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  as  will  make  possible 
the  creation  of  a  society  of  free  nations  pledged  to 
maintain  peace,  protected  by  mutual  guarantees,  ex- 
tended to  the  small  nations  as  well  as  great,  against 
oppression  and  unfair  attack  from  any  warlike  state. 
In  seeking  to  attain  these  ends  we  ought  not  to  rely 
entirely  upon  forces  in  the  field;  nor  ought  we  to 
deceive  ourselves  by  thinking  that  a  military  vic- 
tory, however  complete  and  overwhelming,  will  suf- 
fice to  establish  an  international  order  in  which  there 
is  no  danger  of  future  war.     We  desire  a  victory 


86  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

which  cannot  be  won  wholly  by  the  armies  in  the 
field.  Sufficient  use  has  not  been  made  of  the 
moral,  political  and  diplomatic  weapons  which  the 
Allies  have  at  their  disposal.  There  is  a  danger 
of  substituting  military  success  and  the  desire  for 
territory  for  noble  ideals  and  great  principles.  In 
thus  subordinating  the  moral  to  the  material  we 
mock  the  sacrifice  of  our  heroic  dead  and  forget  God, 
for  which  no  military  success  can  make  amends. 
Long  before  the  war  had  reached  this  present  stage,  a 
great  moral  offensive  should  have  been  launched, 
supplementing  the  military  effort,  with  the  object  of 
bringing  home  to  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  enemy 
peoples  the  real  truth  about  the  war.  Since  con- 
science and  reason  do  not  end  upon  the  frontiers  of 
Central  Europe,  the  democratic  case,  which  the  lead- 
ers of  the  popular  movement  in  the  Allied  countries 
could  present  to  the  social  democracy  of  Germany, 
would  prove  convincing  enough  to  shorten  the  war 
materially.  It  would  clarify  the  real  issues  of  the 
war  in  every  country.  It  is  a  grave  fault  on  the 
part  of  those  who  direct  Allied  policy  that  they  have 
so  far  neglected  to  use  political  and  diplomatic  as 
well  as  military  methods  to  achieve  victory. 

When  victory  in  the  sense  of  the  collapse  of  the 
military  power  in  the  Central  Empires  is  at  last 
achieved,  we  shall  be  confronted  with  the  task  of 


VICTORY  87 

translating  military  success  into  its  political,  eco- 
nomic, and  social  equivalents  in  this  country  and 
every  other.  It  will  not  be  a  democratic  victory  if  it 
results  merely  in  the  restoration  of  the  capitalistic 
regime  which  the  war  has  discredited  and  destroyed. 
Victory  for  the  people  means  something  more  than 
the  continuance  of  the  old  system  of  production  for 
the  profit  of  a  small  owning  class,  on  the  basis  of 
wage-slavery  for  the  producing  classes.  The  hard, 
cruel,  competitive  system  of  production  must  be 
replaced  by  a  system  of  co-operation  under  which 
the  status  of  the  workers  will  be  revolutionised,  and 
in  which  the  squalor  and  poverty,  the  economic  in- 
security and  social  miseries  of  the  past  will  have  no 
place.  This  is  the  great  task  before  the  statesmen 
and  politicians  of  the  future. 

Then  we  must  remember  that  the  coming  period 
of  reconstruction,  even  more  than  the  remaining 
period  of  the  war,  will  impose  upon  the  leaders  of  all 
the  civilised  States  new  and  searching  tests  of  char- 
acter and  intellect.  As  we  draw  nearer  to  the  end 
of  the  war  we  begin  to  see  more  clearly  the  magni- 
tude of  the  problems  that  peace  will  bring.  So  vast, 
intricate,  and  fundamental  have  been  the  changes 
wrought  during  the  last  three  and  a  half  years  that 
we  are  sometimes  tempted  to  think  the  will  and 
intelligence  of  men  will  be  unequal  to  the  task  of 


88  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

dealing  with  them.  Still  more  may  we  fear  some- 
times that  the  problems  of  reconstruction  will  be 
handled  by  men  too  impatient  to  think  things 
through,  too  tired  and  cynical  to  respond  to  the 
glowing  faith  in  a  finer  future  for  the  world  which 
now  inspires  the  multitudes  of  common  people  who 
have  striven  so  heroically  and  suffered  so  patiently 
during  the  war.  For  national  leadership  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  such  men  in  the  great  new  days  upon 
which  we  shall  presently  enter  would  be  a  disaster 
almost  as  great  as  the  war  itself.  If  there  could  be 
anything  worse  than  an  empiric  in  control  of  state 
policy  when  peace  comes,  it  would  be  the  influence 
of  a  cynic  upon  the  splendid  enthusiasm  and  revo- 
lutionary ardour  of  democracy,  newly  awakened  to 
a  consciousness  of  its  power  and  eager  to  build  a 
better  future  for  mankind. 

The  outstanding  fact  of  world  politics  at  the 
present  time — and  when  peace  comes  this  fact  will 
be  made  still  more  clear — is  that  a  great  tide  of 
revolutionary  feeling  is  rising  in  every  country. 
Everywhere  the  peoples  are  becoming  conscious  of 
power.  They  are  beginning  to  sit  in  judgment  upon 
their  rulers.  They  are  beginning  to  ask  questions 
about  the  policies  that  have  brought  the  world  to 
the  edge  of  secular  ruin.  In  this  war  the  people 
have  shown  themselves  capable  of  heroic  sacrifices 


VICTORY  89 

and"  resolute  endurance  because  they  love  liberty  and 
desire  peace.  The  hope  that  the  issue  of  this  war 
will  be  an  increase  of  freedom,  not  only  for  them- 
selves, but  for  those  who  have  lived  under  the  yoke 
of  alien  tyrannies,  has  sustained  the  people  of  this 
country  throughout  these  years  of  war.  It  has 
caused  them  to  pour  out  the  blood  of  their  best  and 
bravest,  to  surrender  hard-won  liberties,  to  toil  un- 
remittingly in  factory,  field  and  mine,  to  spend  with- 
out stint  the  material  wealth  accumulated  through 
years  of  peace  and  prosperity.  These  sacrifices  will 
not  have  been  made  in  vain  if  the  territorial  and 
political  changes  to  be  made  in  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  embody  the  idea  of  public  right,  and  estab- 
lish an  enduring  peace  between  the  nations  that 
emperors,  diplomatists,  and  capitalists  will  not  be 
able  to  shake. 

But  the  people  will  not  choose  to  entrust  their 
destinies  at  the  Peace  Conference  to  statesmen  who 
have  not  perceived  the  moral  significance  of  the 
struggle,  and  who  are  not  prepared  to  make  a  peo- 
ple's peace.  We  want  to  replace  the  material  force 
of  arms  by  the  moral  force  of  right  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world.  For  that  great  task  of  the  im- 
mediate future  we  want  national  leaders  who  are  not 
only  responsive  to  the  inspirations  of  democracy, 
but  who  are  qualified  to  guide  the  mighty  energies 


90  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

of  democracy  in  the  task  of  building  up  the  new 
social  order. 

Never  before  have  the  people  been  confronted 
with  problems  of  greater  magnitude,  international 
and  national,  economic  and  political,  social  and  per- 
sonal; but  never  have  they  had  so  good  an  oppor- 
tunity of  taking  hold  of  these  problems  for  them- 
selves. The  policies  and  programmes  of  the  ortho- 
dox parties  have  little  relevance  to  the  new  situ- 
ation. Political  parties  bound  by  tradition,  satu- 
rated with  class  prejudice,  out  of  touch  with  the 
living  movements  of  thought  and  feeling  among  the 
people,  cannot  easily  adapt  themselves  to  the 
changed  conditions,  the  new  demands,  the  wider 
vision  to  which  the  war  has  given  rise.  The  party 
of  the  future,  upon  which  the  chief  tasks  of  recon- 
struction will  devolve,  will  be  the  one  which  de- 
rives directly  from  the  people  themselves,  and  has 
been  made  the  organ  of  the  people's  will,  the  voice 
of  all  the  people — of  both  sexes  and  all  classes — 
who  work  by  hand  or  brain.  Through  such  a  party 
led  by  democratically  chosen  leaders  who  have 
proved  their  fidelity  to  principle  and  their  faith  in 
the  people's  cause,  the  best  spirits  of  our  time  will 
be  able  to  work  as  they  have  never  been  able  to  work 
in  the  orthodox  parties  of  the  past.  Nothing  but 
disunity  and  divided  counsels  in  the  democratic 


VICTORY  91 

movement  can  wreck  the  promise  of  the  future. 
For  every  man  and  woman  who  believes  in  demo- 
cracy and  who  desires  to  see  a  new  birth  of  freedom 
in  this  land  there  is  a  place  in  the  people's  move- 
ment and  a  well-defined  work  to  do.  Despite  the 
vast  complications  of  our  task,  the  duty  of  Christian 
citizenship  has  never  been  so  clearly  marked.  In 
the  past  the  democratic  effort  has  been  weak  because 
it  has  been  divided.  During  the  war  we  have  learnt 
the  meaning  of  co-operation  for  common  ends.  The 
lesson  holds  good  for  the  politics  of  to-morrow. 

In  a  wider  sense  than  has  hitherto  been  understood 
the  politics  of  the  future  will  be  human  politics,  and 
the  dominating  party  will  be  the  party  of  the  com- 
mon people  and  of  democracy.  This  is  certain. 
The  people  will  have  it  so,  for  the  people  are  weary 
of  wars.  They  have  borne  too  long  the  inequalities 
and  injustices  inherent  in  an  economic  system  based 
on  competition  instead  of  co-operation.  They  are 
coming  together  in  a  more  powerfully  organised 
movement  to  achieve  a  new  freedom,  and  to  estab- 
lish on  this  earth,  drenched  with  men's  blood,  torn 
with  men's  struggles,  wet  with  human  tears,  a  fairer 
ideal  of  life. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  cruel  ravages  of  the  world  war  have  caused  a 
great  resurgence  of  democratic  feeling  throughout 
the  world,  and  have  given  a  great  impetus  to  the 
already  strong  popular  tendencies  towards  democra- 
tic control  in  national  and  international  affairs.  It 
is  impossible  to  calculate  the  extent  to  which  demo- 
cratic thought  and  ideals  now  permeate  the  peoples 
of  the  world :  suffice  it  to  say  that  in  every  country 
without  exception  the  people's  conception  of  the 
tremendous  power  that  is  invested  in  them  consti- 
tutionally and  divinely  has  been  deepened.  Though 
there  is  no  divine  right  of  kings  and  princes  there 
is  the  divine  right  of  peoples:  and  all  the  peo- 
ples of  the  earth  are  beginning  to  realise  more  and 
more  each  day  that  the  "new  kingdom  on  earth" 
can  only  be  established  by  a  full  recognition  of 
these  divine  rights — the  rights  of  liberty  and  equal- 
ity. These  are  the  springs  of  democratic  faith. 
They  are  the  spiritual  basis  of  real  democracy. 

The  coming  of  world  democracy  means  the  uni- 

92 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  DEMOCRACY        93 

versal  reign  of  freedom  and  justice,  equality  and 
fraternity;  the  universal  acceptance  of  the  principle 
of  equal  opportunities  for  all  peoples  to  self  deter- 
mination and  self  development;  and  a  practical 
recognition  of  the  rights  and  obligations  of  each 
nation  as  a  member  of  the  society  of  free  nations. 
It  also  means  a  recognition  of  the  interdependence 
of  peoples,  and  involves  international  co-operation 
and  goodwill. 

In  international  affairs  it  means  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  of  humanity  as  against  selfish  national  inter- 
ests and  ambitions.  In  national  affairs  it  means 
the  common  weal  as  against  class  or  individual  in- 
terests. National  prosperity  cannot  be  truly  ap- 
praised by  the  wealth  of  the  few,  but  by  the  content- 
ment and  happiness  of  the  community  as  a  whole 
and  their  ability  to  satisfy,  not  only  their  social  re- 
quirements, but  also  their  spiritual  needs.  As 
Lecky  has  truly  said,  "The  essential  qualities  of 
national  greatness  are  moral,  not  material."  Moral 
greatness  may  beget  material  prosperity,  but  material 
prosperity  by  itself  invariably  tends  to  a  depreci- 
ation of  the  spiritual  and  moral:  it  dulls  the  finer 
sensibilities,  and  saps  the  real  strength  of  a  people. 
How  often  in  the  early  days  of  war  was  the  fear 
expressed  that  our  great  material  prosperity  had 
deadened  many  of  the  finest  national  qualities  and 


94  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

characteristics  of  our  race?  Fortunately  for  the 
future  welfare  of  the  people,  they  were  not  dead, 
but  lying  dormant,  and  the  impulse  to  new  life  which 
they  received  in  1914  was  so  great  that  under  the 
subsequent  stress  and  strain  of  war  the  vision  of 
the  people  became  clearer,  their  sense  of  real  values 
became  finer  and  more  keen,  until  now  they  are 
determined  that  henceforth  only  the  best  social  struc- 
ture that  human  knowledge,  experience,  and  capacity 
can  devise  will  satisfy  their  determination  to  re- 
build civilisation  on  a  foundation  of  justice  and 
righteousness. 

But  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  to  create  a  healthy 
internationalism  and  a  true  nationalism  unless  the 
importance  of  the  individual  also  is  recognised. 
The  society  of  nations  is  founded  on  the  comity  of 
individuals.  And  there  is  an  obvious  danger  in 
over-looking  the  supreme  importance  of  character 
as  an  indispensable  factor  in  national  and  interna- 
tional life.  Looking  at  every  phase  of  national  life 
we  find  a  decided  tendency  to  undervalue  or  ignore 
altogether  the  moral  worth  of  the  unit  of  society. 
We  think  in  numbers:  we  act  in  numbers.  Move- 
ments appeal  to  our  minds,  not  always  because  they 
are  right,  but  because  they  are  popular.  Many  peo- 
ple talk  about  what  is  wrong  with  the  world,  the 
nation,  or  the  municipality,  but  do  not  dream  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  DEMOCRACY        95 

enquiring  what  is  wrong  with  the  individual.  Yet 
the  expression  of  the  national  will  represents  the 
greatest  common  measure  of  the  views  of  the  con- 
stituent mdividuals  in  the  aggregate.  And  demo- 
cracy can  never  rise  to  the  full  greatness  of  its 
possibilities  unless  the  individual  rises  to  the  highest 
point  of  moral  greatness.  Men  and  women  with 
low  moral  standards  are  the  weakest  links  in  the 
chain  and  the  strength  of  the  chain  is  limited  to  the 
strength  of  its  weakest  link.  To  secure  an  improve- 
ment in  the  material  and  social  conditions  of  the 
people,  we  must  elevate  the  moral  standards  of  the 
people,  since  it  is  only  possible  to  secure  and  con- 
solidate vital  changes  as  a  result  of  the  moral  de- 
termination of  the  community  as  a  whole.  This 
question  of  the  importance  of  the  moral  passion  and 
rectitude  of  the  individual  is  becoming  daily  more 
urgent  in  view  of  the  significant  rise  and  growing 
power  of  democracy  in  this  country.  The  future 
welfare  of  the  nation  is  in  the  hands  of  the  organised 
democracy,  and  we  are  compelled  to  concern  our- 
selves not  only  with  intentions  and  practical  aims, 
but  with  the  faith,  the  ideals,  and  the  personal  quali- 
ties of  leaders  and  followers.  The  difficulties  before 
us  are  stupendous — Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day, 
and  neither  will  the  new  national  and  international 
structure  be  completed  in  a  day  nor  without  heavy 


96  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

demands  being  made  upon  the  moral  staying  power 
of  the  people.  To  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance 
will  not  bring  us  to  the  new  world :  the  path  will  be 
long,  difficult,  and  full  of  pitfalls. 

If  democracy  is  to  take  full  advantage  of  the 
glorious  opportunities  before  it,  it  can  only  be  as  a 
people  individually  strong  in  determination,  and 
fired  by  moral  passion  and  lofty  ideals,  led  by  men 
and  women  inspired  to  action  by  high  purpose  and 
unselfish  ambition.  Surely  then,  we  cannot  afford 
to  ignore  the  question  of  personal  character  in  our 
efforts  to  reach  the  Social  ideal.  The  doctrine  of 
personal  irresponsibility  is  not  only  dangerous  but 
an  indication  of  a  lack  of  vision  on  the  part  of  those 
who  advance  it,  and  is  often  only  employed  to  excuse 
an  evasion  of  an  individual's  civic  and  social  duties. 
The  individual  is  not  justified  in  claiming  his  na- 
tional rights  unless  he  fulfils  his  obligation  to  his 
fellow  men  and  to  the  State:  the  State  must  recog- 
nise the  rights  of  its  citizens  if  it  demands  from 
them  a  fulfilment  of  their  obligations  as  citizens. 
This  is  the  sure  way  to  stimulate  a  real  personal  and 
national  consciousness  upon  which  the  success  of 
democracy  so  much  depends.  Democracy  will  be 
effective  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  its  spiritual 
and  moral  faith;  and  the  power  of  democracy  as 
a  whole  will  be  measured  by  the  loyalty  of  the  in- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  DEMOCRACY        97 

dividual  to  principle  and  by  his  belief  in  the  moral 
power  of  right  as  against  wrong.  Character  in  the 
individual  exemplifies  human  nature  in  its  highest 
form,  for  it  exhibits  man  at  his  best:  and  only  a 
democracy  built  on  the  highest  form  of  character  will 
prove  to  be  that  instrument  by  which  the  world  is  to 
be  saved. 


APPENDIX  I 

INTER-ALLIED  LABOUR  WAR  AIMS 

The  following  is  the  full  text  of  the  "Memorandum  on  War  Aims" 
adopted  by  the  Inter-Allied  Labour  and  Socialist  Conference  in 
London : 

THE  WAR 

I. — The  Inter-Allied  Conference  declares  that  whatever  may  have 
been  the  causes  of  the  outbreak  of  war  it  is  clear  that  the  peoples 
of  Europe,  who  are  necessarily  the  chief  sufferers  from  its  horrors, 
had  themselves  no  hand  in  it.  Their  common  interest  is  now  so 
to  conduct  the  terrible  struggle  in  which  they  find  themselves  en- 
gaged as  to  bring  it,  as  soon  as  may  be  possible,  to  an  issue  in  a 
secure  and  lasting  peace  for  the  world. 

The  Conference  sees  no  reason  to  depart  from  the  following  decla- 
ration unanimously  agreed  to  at  the  Conference  of  the  Socialist  and 
Labour  Parties  of  the  Allied  Nations  on  February  14,  1915: 

"This  Conference  cannot  ignore  the  profound  general  causes  of 
the  European  conflict,  itself  a  monstrous  product  of  the  antagonisms 
which  tear  asimder  capitalist  society  and  of  the  policy  of  colonial 
dependencies  and  aggressive  imperialism,  against  which  Interna- 
tional Socialism  has  never  ceased  to  fight,  and  in  which  every  govern- 
ment has  its  share  of  responsibility. 

"The  invasion  of  Belgium  and  France  by  the  German  armies 
threatens  the  very  existence  of  independent  nationalities  and  strikes 
a  blow  at  all  faith  in  treaties.  In  these  circumstances  a  victory  for 
German  imperialism  would  be  the  defeat  and  the  destruction  of 
democracy  and  liberty  in  Europe.  The  Socialists  of  Great  Britain, 
Belgium,  France  and  Russia  do  not  pursue  the  political  and  economic 
crushing  of  Germany;  they  are  not  at  war  with  the  peoples  of  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  but  only  with  the  governments  of  those  countries 
by  which  they  are  oppressed.  They  demand  that  Belgium  shall  be 
liberated  and  compensated.  They  desire  that  the  question  of  Poland 
shall  be  settled  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Polish  people, 
either  in  the  sense  of  autonomy  in  the  midst  of  another  state,  or  in 
that  of  complete  independence.  They  wish  that  throughout  all  Eu- 
rope, from  Alsace-Lorraine  to  the  Balkans,  those  populations  that 
have  been  annexed  by  force  shall  receive  the  right  freely  to  dispose 
of  themselves. 

"While  inflexibly  resolved  to  fight  imtil  victory  is  achieved  to  ac- 

99 


100  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

complish  this  task  of  liberation,  the  Socialists  are  none  the  less  re- 
solved to  resist  any  attempt  to  transform  this  defensive  war  into  a 
war  of  conquest,  which  would  only  prepare  fresh  conflicts,  create  new 
grievances  and  subject  various  peoples  more  than  ever  to  the  dou- 
ble plague  of  armaments  and  war. 

"Satisfied  that  they  are  remaining  true  to  the  principles  of  the 
International,  the  members  of  the  Conference  express  the  hope  that 
the  working  classes  of  all  the  different  countries  will  before  long  find 
themselves  united  again  in  their  struggle  against  militarism  and 
capitalist  imperialism.  The  victory  of  the  Allied  Powers  must  be  a 
victory  for  popular  liberty,  for  unity,  independence  and  autonomy 
of  the  nations  in  the  peaceful  federation  of  the  United  States  of 
Europe  and  the  world." 

MAKING  THE  WORLD  SAFE  FOR  DEMOCRACY 

II. — Whatever  may  have  been  the  objects  for  which  the  war  was 
begim  the  fimdamental  purpose  of  the  Inter-Allied  Conference  in 
supporting  the  continuance  of  the  struggle  is  that  the  world  may 
henceforth  be  made  safe  for  democracy. 

Of  all  the  conditions  of  peace  none  is  so  important  to  the  peoples 
of  the  world  as  that  there  should  be  henceforth  on  earth  no  more 
war. 

Whoever  triumphs,  the  peoples  will  have  lost  unless  an  international 
system  is  established  which  will  prevent  war.  What  would  it  mean 
to  declare  the  right  of  peoples  to  self-determination  if  this  right  were 
left  at  the  mercy  of  new  violations,  and  was  not  protected  by  a  super- 
national  authority?  That  authority  can  be  no  other  than  the  League 
of  Nations,  in  which  not  only  all  the  present  belligerents,  but  every 
other  independent  state,  should  be  pressed  to  join. 

The  constitution  of  such  a  League  of  Nations  implies  the  imme- 
diate establishment  of  an  international  High  Court,  not  only  for  the 
settlement  of  all  disputes  between  states  that  are  of  justiciable  na- 
ture, but  also  for  prompt  and  effective  mediation  between  states  in 
other  issues  that  vitally  interest  the  power  or  honour  of  such  states. 
It  is  also  under  the  control  of  the  League  of  Nations  that  the  con- 
sultation of  peoples  for  purposes  of  self-determination  must  be  or- 
ganised. This  popular  right  can  be  vindicated  only  by  popular 
vote.  The  League  of  Nations  shall  establish  the  procedure  of  in- 
ternational jurisdiction,  fix  the  methods  which  will  maintain  the  free- 
dom and  security  of  the  election,  restore  the  political  rights  of  in- 
dividuals which  violence  and  conquest  may  have  injured,  repress 
any  attempt  to  use  pressiu-e  or  corruption,  and  prevent  any  sub- 
sequent reprisals.  It  will  be  also  necessary  to  form  an  International 
Legislatiire,  in  which  the  representatives  of  every  civilised  state  would 
have  their  allotted  share  and  energetically  to  push  forward,  step  by 
step,  the  development  of  international  legislation  agreed  to  by,  and 
definitely  binding  upon,  the  several  states. 

By  a  solemn  agreement  all  the  states  and  peoples  consulted  shall 
pledge   themselves  to  submit  every   issue   between  two  or  more  of 


APPENDIX  I  101 

them  for  settlement  as  aforesaid.  Refusal  to  accept  arbitration  or 
to  submit  to  the  settlement  will  imply  deliberate  aggression,  and  all 
the  nations  will  necessarily  have  to  make  conmion  cause,  by  using 
any  and  every  means  at  their  disposal,  either  economical  or  military, 
against  any  state  or  states  refilsing  to  submit  to  the  arbitration  award, 
or  attempting  to  break  the  world's  covenant  of  peace. 

But  the  sincere  acceptance  of  the  rules  and  decisions  of  the  super- 
national  authority  implies  complete  democratisation  in  all  countries; 
the  removal  of  all  the  arbitrary  powers  who,  xmtil  now,  have  as- 
sumed the  right  of  choosing  between  peace  and  war;  the  maintenance 
or  creation  of  legislatures  elected  by  and  on  behalf  of  the  sovereign 
right  of  the  people;  the  suppression  of  secret  diplomacy,  to  be  re- 
placed by  the  conduct  of  foreign  policy  under  the  control  of  popular 
legislatures,  and  the  publication  of  all  treaties,  which  must  never  be 
in  contravention  of  the  stipulation  of  the  League  of  Nations,  with 
the  absolute  responsibility  of  the  government,  and  more  particularly 
of  the  foreign  minister  of  each  country  to  its  legislature. 

Only  such  a  policy  will  enforce  the  frank  abandonment  of  every 
form  of  imperialism.  When  based  on  universal  democracy,  in  a 
world  in  which  effective  international  guarantees  against  aggression 
have  been  secured,  the  League  of  Nations  will  achieve  the  complete 
suppression  of  force  as  the  means  of  settling  international  differ- 
ences. 

The  League  of  Nations,  in  order  to  prepare  for  the  concerted  aboli- 
tion of  compulsory  military  service  in  all  countries,  must  first  take 
steps  for  the  prohibition  of  fresh  armaments  on  land  and  sea  and 
for  the  common  limitation  of  the  existing  armaments  by  which  all  the 
peoples  are  bm-dened;  as  well  as  the  control  of  war  manufactures 
and  tlie  enforcement  of  such  agreements  as  may  be  agreed  to  there- 
upon. The  states  must  undertake  such  manufactures  themselves,  so 
as  entirely  to  abolish  profit-making  armament  firms,  whose  pecuniary 
interest  lies  always  in  the  war  scares  and  progressive  competition  in 
the  preparation  for  war. 

The  nations,  being  armed  solely  for  self-defence  and  for  such  action 
as  the  League  of  Nations  may  ask  them  to  take  in  defence  of  in- 
ternational right,  will  be  left  free,  under  international  control  either 
to  create  a  voluntarily  recruited  force  or  to  organise  the  nation  for 
defense  without  professional  armies  for  long  terms  of  military  serv- 
ice. 

To  give  effect  to  the  above  principles,  the  Inter-Allied  Conference 
declares  that  the  rules  upon  which  the  League  of  Nations  will  be 
founded  must  be  included  in  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  will  henceforth 
become  the  basis  of  the  settlement  of  differences.  In  that  spirit 
the  Conference  expresses  its  agreement  with  the  propositions  put  for- 
ward by  President  Wilson  in  his  last  message: 

(1)  That  each  part  of  the  final  settlement  must  be  based  upon 
the  essential  justice  of  that  particular  case,  and  upon  such  adjust- 
ments as  are  most  likely  to  bring  a  peace  that  will  be  permanerit. 

(2)  That  peoples  and  provinces  are  not  to  be  bartered  about 
from  sovereignty  to  sovereignty  as  if  they  were  mere  chattels  and 


102  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

pawns  in  a  game,  even  the  great  game  now  forever  discredited  of  the 
balance  of  power;  but  that 

(3)  Every  territorial  settlement  involved  in  this  war  must  be 
made  in  the  interest  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  populations  concerned, 
and  not  as  a  part  of  any  mere  adjustments  of  compromise  of  claims 
amongst  rival  states. 

(4)  That  all  well-defined  national  aspirations  shall  be  accorded 
the  utmost  satisfaction  that  can  be  accorded  them  without  intro- 
ducing new  or  perpetuating  old  elements  of  discord  and  antagonism 
that  would  be  likely  in  time  to  break  the  peace  of  Europe,  and, 
consequently,   of  the  world. 

TERRITORIAL  QUESTIONS 

III. — The  Inter-Allied  Conference  considers  that  the  proclama- 
tion of  principles  of  international  law  accepted  by  all  nations,  and 
the  substitution  of  a  regular  procedure  for  the  forceful  acts  by  which 
states  calling  themselves  sovereign  have  hitherto  adjusted  their  dif- 
ferences— in  short,  the  establishment  of  a  League  of  Nations — 
gives  an  entirely  new  aspect  to  territorial  problems. 

The  old  diplomacy  and  the  yearnings  after  domination  by  states, 
or  even  by  peoples,  which  during  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century 
have  taken  advantage  of  and  corrupted  the  aspirations  of  nationali- 
ties, have  brought  Europe  to  a  cbndition  of  anarchy  and  disorder 
which  have  led  inevitably  to  the  present  catastrophe. 

The  Conference  declares  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Labor  and  Social- 
ist movement  to  suppress  without  hesitation  the  imperialist  designs 
in  the  various  states  which  have  led  one  government  after  another 
to  seek,  by  the  triumph  of  military  force,  to  acquire  either  new  terri- 
tories or  economic  advantage. 

The  establishment  of  a  system  of  international  law  and  the 
guarantees  afforded  by  a  League  of  Nations,  ought  to  remove  the  last 
excuse  for  those  strategic  protections  which  nations  have  hitherto  felt 
bound  to  require. 

It  is  the  supreme  principle  of  the  right  of  each  people  to  deter- 
mine its  own  destiny  that  must  now  decide  what  steps  should  be 
taken  by  way  of  restitution  or  reparation,  and  whatever  territorial 
readjustments  may  be  found  to  be  necessary  at  the  close  of  the 
present  war. 

The  Conference  accordingly  emphasises  the  importance  to  the 
labour  and  Socialist  movement  of  a  clear  and  exact  deiinition  of 
what  is  meant  by  the  right  of  each  people  to  determine  its  own 
destiny.  Neither  destiny  of  race  nor  identity  of  language  can  be 
regarded  as  affording  more  than  a  presumption  in  favour  of  federa- 
tion or  unification.  During  the  nineteenth  century  the  theories  of 
this  kind  have  so  often  served  as  a  cloak  for  aggression  that  the 
International  cannot  but  seek  to  prevent  any  recurrence  of  such  an 
evil.  Any  adjustments  of  boundaries  that  become  necessary  must 
be  based  exclusively  upon  the  desire  of  the  people  concerned. 

It  is  true  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  necessary  consultation  of 


APPENDIX  I  103 

the  desires  of  the  people  concerned  to  be  made  in  any  fixed  and 
invariable  way  for  all  the  cases  in  which  it  is  required,  and  that  the 
problems  of  nationality  and  territory  are  not  the  same  for  the  inhab- 
itants of  all  coimtries.  Nevertheless,  what  is  necessary  in  all  cases 
is  that  the  procedure  to  be  adopted  should  be  decided,  not  by  one 
of  the  parties  to  the  dispute,  but  by  the  super-national  authority. 

Upon  the  basis  of  the  general  principles  herein  formulated  the 
Conference  proposes  the  following  solutions  of  particular  problems: 

(a)     Belgium 

The  Conference  emphatically  insists  that  a  foremost  condition  of 
peace  must  be  the  reparation  by  the  German  government,  under  the 
direction  of  an  International  Commission,  of  the  wrong  admittedly 
done  to  Belgium;  payment  by  that  government  for  all  the  damage 
that  has  resulted  from  this  wrong;  and  the  restoration  of  Belgium 
as  an  independent  sovereign  state,  leaving  to  the  decision  of  the 
Belgian  people  the  determination  of  their  own  future  policy  in  all 
respects. 

(b)     Alsace  and  Lorraine 

The  Conference  declares  that  the  problem  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
is  not  one  of  territorial  adjustment,  but  one  of  right,  and  thus  an 
international  problem,  the  solution  of  which  is  indispensable  if  peace 
is  to  be  eitlier  just  or  lasting. 

The  Treaty  of  Frankfort  at  one  and  the  same  time  mutilated 
France  and  violated  the  right  of  the  inhabitants  of  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine to  dispose  of  their  own  destinies,  a  right  which  they  have 
repeatedly  claimed. 

The  new  treaty  of  peace,  in  recognising  that  Germany  by  her 
declaration  of  war  of  1914,  has  herself  broken  the  Treaty  of  Frank- 
fort, will  make  null  and  void  the  gains  of  a  brutal  conquest  and  of 
the  violence  committed  against  the  people. 

France,  having  secured  this  recognition,  can  properly  agree  to  a 
fresh  consultation  of  the  population  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  as  to  its 
own  desires. 

The  treaty  of  peace  will  bear  the  signatures  of  every  nation  in 
the  world.  It  will  be  guaranteed  by  the  League  of  Nations.  To  this 
League  of  Nations  France  is  prepared  to  remit,  with  the  freedom 
and  sincerity  of  a  popular  vote,  of  which  the  details  can  be  subse- 
quently settled,  the  organisation  of  such  a  consultation  as  shall 
settle  forever,  as  a  matter  of  right,  the  future  destiny  of  Alsace  and 
Lorraine,  and  as  shall  finally  remove  from  the  common  life  of  all 
Europe  a  quarrel  which  has  imposed  so  heavy  a  burden  upon  it. 

(c)     The  Balkans 

The  Conference  lays  down  the  principle  that  all  the  violations  and 
perversions  of  the  rights  of  the  people  which  have  taken  place,  or  are 
still  taking  place,  in  the  Balkans  must  be  made  the  subject  of  redress 
or  reparation. 


104  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

Serbia,  Montenegro,  Rumania,  Albania  and  all  the  territories 
occupied  by  military  forces  should  be  evacuated  by  the  hostile  forces. 
Wherever  any  population  of  the  same  race  and  tongue  demands  to 
be  united  this  must  be  done.  Each  such  people  must  be  accorded 
full  liberty  to  settle  its  own  destiny,  without  regard  to  the  imperial- 
istic pretensions  of  Austria,  Hungary,  Turkey  or  other  state. 

Accepting  this  principle,  the  Conference  proposes  that  the  whole 
problem  of  the  administrative  reorganisation  of  the  Balkan  peoples 
should  be  dealt  with  by  a  special  conference  of  their  representatives 
or  in  case  of  disagreement  by  an  authoritative  international  commis- 
sion on  the  basis  of  (a)  the  concession  within  each  independent 
sovereignty  of  local  autonomy  and  seciirity  for  the  development  of 
its  particular  civilisation  of  every  racial  minority;  (b)  the  universal 
guarantee  of  freedom  or  religion  and  political  equality  for  all  races; 
(c)  a  Customs  and  Postal  Union  embracing  the  whole  of  the  Balkan 
states  with  free  access  for  each  to  its  natural  seaport;  (d)  the  entry 
of  all  the  Balkan  states  into  a  federation  for  the  concerted  arrangement 
by  mutual  agreement  among  themselves  of  all  matters  of  common 
interest. 

(d)    Itaiy 

The  conference  declares  its  warmest  sympathy  with  the  people  of 
Italian  blood  and  speech  who  have  been  left  outside  the  boundaries 
that  have,  as  a  result  of  the  diplomatic  agreements  of  the  past,  and 
for  strategic  reasons,  been  assigned  to  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  and 
supports  their  claim  to  be  united  with  those  of  their  own  race  and 
tongue.  It  realises  that  arrangements  may  be  necessary  for  securing 
the  legitimate  interests  of  the  people  of  Italy  in  the  adjacent  seas, 
but  it  condemns  the  aims  of  conquest  of  Italian  Imperialism  and 
believes  that  all  legitimate  needs  can  be  safeguarded,  without  pre- 
cluding a  like  recognition  of  the  deeds  of  others  or  annexation  of 
other  people's  territories. 

Regarding  the  Italian  population  dispersed  on  the  eastern  shores 
of  the  Adriatic,  the  relations  between  Italy  and  the  Yugo-Slav  popu- 
lations must  be  based  on  principles  of  equity  and  conciliation,  so  as 
to  prevent  any  cause  of  future  quarrel. 

If  there  are  found  to  be  groups  of  Slavonian  race  within  the 
newly  defined  Kingdom  of  Italy  or  groups  of  Italian  race  in  Sla- 
vonian territory,  mutual  guarantees  must  be  given  for  the  assurance 
of  all  of  them,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  full  liberty  of  local  self- 
government  and  of  the  natural  development  of  their  several  activities. 

(e)     Poland  and  the  Baltic  Provinces 

In  accordance  with  the  right  of  every  people  to  detennine  its  own 
destinies,  Poland  must  be  reconstituted  in  unity  and  independence 
with  free  access  to  the  sea. 

The  Conference  declares  further,  that  any  annexation  by  Germany, 
■whether  open  or  disguised,  of  Livonia,  Courland  or  Lithuania  would 
be  a  flagrant  and  wholly  inadmissible  violation  of  international  law. 


APPENDIX  I  105 

(f)    The  Jews  and  Palestine 

The  Conference  demands  for  the  Jews  in  all  countries  the  same 
elementary  rights  of  freedom  of  religion,  education,  residence  and 
trade  and  equal  citizenship  that  ought  to  be  extended  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  every  nation.  It  further  expresses  the  opinion  that 
Palestine  should  be  set  free  from  the  hard  and  oppressive  govern- 
ment of  the  Turk,  in  order  that  this  coimtry  may  form  a  Free  State, 
under  international  guarantee,  to  which  such  of  the  Jewish  people 
as  desire  to  do  so  may  return  and  may  work  out  .their  own  salva- 
tion free  from  interference  by  those  of  alien  race  or  religion. 

(g)    The  Problem  of  the  Turkish  Empire 

The  Conference  condemns  the  handing  back  to  the  systematically 
cruel  domination  of  the  Turkish  government  any  subject  people. 
Thus,  whatever  may  be  proposed  with  regard  to  Armenia,  Mesopo- 
tamia and  Arabia,  they  caimot  be  restored  to  the  tyranny  of  the 
Sultan  and  his  Pashas.  The  Conference  condemns  the  imperialist 
aims  of  governments  and  capitalists  who  would  make  of  these  and 
other  territories  now  dominated  by  the  Turkish  hordes  merely  instru- 
ments either  of  exploitation  or  militarism.  If  the  peoples  of  these 
territories  do  not  feel  themselves  able  to  settle  their  own  destinies, 
the  Conference  insists  that,  conformably  with  the  policy  of  "no 
annexations,"  they  should  be  placed  for  administration  in  the  hands 
of  a  Commission  acting  under  the  Super-National  Authority  or 
League  of  Nations.  It  is  further  suggested  that  the  peace  of  the 
world  requires  that  the  Dardanelles  should  be  permanently  and 
effectively  neutralised  and  opened  like  all  the  main  lines  of  marine 
commimication,  under  the  control  of  the  League  of  Nations,  freely 
to  all  nations,  without  hindrance  or  customs  duties. 

(h)     Austria-Hungary 

The  Conference  does  not  propose  as  a  war  aim  dismemberment 
of  Austria-Hungary  or  its  deprivation  of  economic  access  to  the 
sea.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Conference  cannot  admit  that  the  claims 
to  independence  made  by  the  Czecho-Slovaks  and  the  Yugo-Slavs 
must  be  regarded  merely  as  questions  for  internal  decision.  National 
independence  ought  to  be  accorded,  according  to  rules  to  be  laid 
down  by  the  League  of  Nations,  to  such  peoples  as  demand  it,  and 
these  communities  ought  to  have  the  opportunity  of  determining 
their  own  groupings  and  federations  according  to  their  affinities  and 
interests.  If  they  think  fit  they  are  free  to  substitute  a  free  federa- 
tion of  Danubian  states  for  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire. 

(i)    The  Colonies  and  Dependencies 

The  International  has  always  condemned  the  colonial  policy  of 
capitalist  governments.  Without  ceasing  to  condemn  it,  the  Inter- 
Allied  Conference  nevertheless  recognises  the  existence  of  a  state  of 
things  which  it  is  obliged  to  take  into  account. 


106  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

The  Conference  considers  that  the  treaty  of  peace  ought  to  secure 
to  tlie  natives  in  all  colonies  and  dependencies  effective  protection 
against  the  excesses  of  capitalist  colonialism.  The  Conference  de- 
mands the  concession  of  administrative  autonomy  for  all  groups  of 
people  that  attain  a  certain  degree  of  civilisation,  and  for  all  the 
others  a  progressive  participation  in  local  government. 

The  Conference  is  of  opinion  that  the  return  of  the  colonies  to 
those  who  possessed  them  before  the  v^^ar,  or  the  exchange  or  com- 
pensations which  might  be  effected,  ought  not  to  be  an  obstacle  to 
the  making  of  peace. 

Those  colonies  that  have  been  taken  by  conquest  from  any  bellig- 
erent must  be  made  the  subject  of  special  consideration  at  the  Peace 
Conference,  as  to  which  the  communities  in  their  neighbourhood  will 
be  entitled  to  take  part.  But  the  clause  in  the  treaty  of  peace  on 
this  point  must  secure  economic  equality  in  such  territories  for  the 
peoples  of  all  nations,  and  thereby  guarantee  that  none  are  shut 
out  from  legitimate  access  to  raw  materials;  prevented  from  disposing 
of  their  own  products,  or  deprived  of  their  proper  share  of  economic 
development. 

As  regards  more  especially  the  colonies  of  all  the  belligerents  in 
Tropical  Africa,  from  sea  to  sea,  including  the  whole  of  the  region 
north  of  the  Zambesi  and  south  of  the  Sahara,  the  Conference 
condemns  any  imperialist  idea  which  would  make  these  countries 
the  booty  of  one  or  several  nations,  exploit  them  for  the  profit  of 
the  capitalist  or  use  them  for  the  promotion  of  the  militarist  aims 
of  the  governments. 

With  respect  to  these  colonies  the  Conference  declares  in  favour 
of  a  system  of  control,  established  by  international  agreement,  under 
the  League  of  Nations  and  maintained  by  its  guarantee,  which, 
whilst  respecting  national  sovereignty,  would  be  alike  inspired  by 
broad  conceptions  of  economic  freedom  and  concerned  to  .safeguard 
the  rights  of  the  natives  under  the  best  conditions  possible  for  them, 
and  in  particular: 

( 1 )  It  would  take  account  in  each  locality  of  the  wishes  of  the 
people,   expressed   in  the  form  which   is  possible  for  them. 

(2)  The  interests  of  the  native  tribes  as  regards  the  ownersliip 
of  the  soil  would  be  maintained. 

(3)  The  whole  of  the  revenues  would  be  devoted  to  the  well- 
being  and  development  of  the  colonies  themselves. 

ECONOMIC  RELATIONS 

IV.  The  Inter-Allied  Conference  declares  against  all  the  projects 
now  being  prepared  by  imperialists  and  capitalists,  not  in  any  one 
country  only,  but  in  most  countries,  for  an  economic  war,  after  peace 
has  been  secured,  either  against  one  or  other  foreign  nation  or  against 
all  foreign  nations,  as  such  an  economic  war,  if  begun  by  any  country, 
would  inevitably  lead  to  reprisals,  to  which  each  nation  in  turn 
might  in  self-defence  be  driven.  The  main  lines  of  marine  com- 
munication   should    be    open    without    hindrance    to    vessels    of    all 


APPENDIX  I  107 

nations  under  the  protection  of  the  League  of  Nations.  The  Con- 
ference realises  that  all  attempts  at  economic  aggression,  whether 
by  protective  tariffs  or  capitalist  trusts  or  monopolies,  inevitably 
result  in  the  spoliation  of  the  working  classes  of  the  several  countries 
for  the  profit  of  the  capitalists;  and  the  working  classes  see  in  the 
alliance  between  the  military  imperialists  and  the  fiscal  protectionists 
in  any  country  whatsoever  not  only  a  serious  danger  to  the  prosperity 
of  tlie  masses  of  the  people,  but  also  a  grave  menace  to  peace.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  right  of  each  nation  to  the  defence  of  its  own 
economic  interests,  and  in  face  of  the  world-shortage  hereinafter 
mentioned,  to  the  conservation  for  its  own  people  of  a  sufficiency 
of  its  own  supplies  of  foodstuffs  and  raw  materials,  cannot  be 
denied.  The  Conference  accordingly  urges  upon  the  labour  and 
Socialist  parties  of  all  countries  the  importance  of  insisting,  in  the 
attitude  of  the  government  towards  commercial  enterprise,  along 
with  the  necessary  control  of  supplies  for  its  own  people,  on  the 
principle  of  the  open  door,  and  without  hostile  discrimination  against 
foreign  countries.  But  it  urges  equally  the  importance,  not  merely 
of  conservation,  but  also  of  the  utmost  possible  development,  by 
appropriate  government  action,  of  the  resources  of  every  country 
for  the  benefit  not  only  of  its  own  people,  but  also  of  the  world, 
and  the  need  for  an  international  agreement  for  the  enforcement  in 
all  countries  of  the  legislation  on  factory  conditions,  a  maximum 
eight-hour  day,  the  prevention  of  "sweating"  and  vmhealthy  trades 
necessary  to  protect  the  workers  against  exploitation  and  oppression, 
and  the  prohibition  of  night  work  by  women  and  children. 

THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PEACE 

V.  To  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy  involves  much  more  than 
the  prevention  of  war,  either  military  or  economic.  It  will  be  a 
device  of  the  capitalist  interests  to  pretend  that  the  treaty  of  peace 
need  concern  itself  only  with  the  cessation  of  the  struggles  of  the 
armed  forces  and  with  any  necessary  territorial  readjustments.  The 
Inter-Allied  Conference  insists  that  in  view  of  the  probable  world- 
wide shortage,  after  the  war,  of  exportable  foodstuffs  and  raw 
materials,  and  of  merchant  shipping,  it  is  imperative,  in  order  to 
prevent  the  most  serious  hardships,  and  even  possible  famine,  in  one 
country  or  another,  that  systematic  arrangements  should  be  made  on 
an  international  basis  for  the  allocation  and  conveyance  of  the  avail- 
able exportable  siu-pluses  of  these  commodities  to  the  different  coun- 
tries, in  proportion,  not  to  their  purchasing  powers,  but  to  their 
several  pressing  needs;  and  that,  within  each  country,  the  govern- 
ment must  for  some  time  maintain  its  control  of  the  most  indis- 
pensable commodities,  in  order  to  secure  their  appropriation,  not  in 
a  competitive  market  mainly  to  the  richer  classes  in  proportion  to 
their  means,  but,  systematically,  to  meet  the  most  urgent  needs 
of  the  whole  community  on  the  principle  of  "no  cake  for  any  one 
until  all  have  bread." 

Moreover,  it  cannot  but  be  anticipated  that,  in  all  countries,  the 


108  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

dislocation  of  industry  attendant  on  peace,  the  instant  discharge 
of  millions  of  munition  njakers  and  workers  in  war  trades,  and  the 
demobilisation  of  millions  of  soldiers — in  face  of  the  scarcity  of 
industrial  capital,  the  shortage  of  raw  materials,  and  the  insecurity 
of  commercial  enterprise — will,  unless  prompt  and  energetic  action 
be  taken  by  the  several  governments,  plunge  a  large  part  of  the  wage- 
earning  population  into  all  the  miseries  of  tmemployment  more  or 
less  prolonged.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  widespread  unemployment 
in  any  coimtry,  like  a  famine,  is  an  injury  not  to  that  country  alone, 
but  impoverishes  also  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  Conference  holds 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  government  to  take  immediate  action,  not 
merely  to  relieve  the  xmemployed,  when  unemployment  has  set  in, 
but  actually,  so  far  as  may  be  practicable,  to  prevent  the  occurrence 
of  unemployment.  It  therefore  urges  upon  the  labour  parties  of  every 
country  the  necessity  of  their  pressing  upon  their  governments  the 
preparation  of  plans  for  the  execution  of  all  the  innumerable  public 
works  (such  as  the  making  and  repairing  of  roads,  railways  and  water- 
ways, the  erection  of  schools  and  public  buildings,  the  provision  of 
working-class  dwellings  and  the  reclamation  and  afforestation  of  land) 
that  will  be  required  in  tlie  near  future,  not  for  the  sake  of  finding 
measures  of  relief  for  the  unemployed,  but  with  a  view  to  these 
works  being  undertaken  at  such  a  rate  in  each  locality  as  will 
suffice,  together  with  the  various  capitalist  enterprises  that  may  be 
in  progress,  to  maintain  at  a  fairly  uniform  level  year  by  year,  and 
throughout  each  year,  the  aggregate  demand  for  labour;  and  thus 
prevent  there  being  any  unemployed.  It  is  now  known  that  in  this 
way  it  is  quite  possible  for  any  goverrunent  to  prevent,  if  it  chooses, 
the  occurrence  of  any  widespread  or  prolonged  involuntary  unem- 
ployment; which  if  it  is  now  in  any  country  allowed  to  occur,  is 
as  much  the  result  of  govenunent  neglect  as  is  any  epidemic  disease. 

RESTORATION  OF  THE  DEVASTATED  AREAS  AND 
REPARATION  OF   WRONGDOING 

VI.  The  Inter-Allied  Conference  holds  that  one  of  the  most 
imperative  duties  of  all  countries  immediately  peace  is  declared  will 
be  the  restoration,  so  far  as  may  be  possible,  of  the  homes,  farms, 
factories,  public  buildings  and  means  of  communication  whatever 
destroyed  by  war  operations;  that  the  restoration  should  not  be 
limited  to  compensation  for  public  buildings,  capitalist  undertakings 
and  material  property  proved  to  be  destroyed  or  damaged,  but 
should  be  extended  to  setting  up  the  wage-earners  and  peasants 
themselves  in  homes  and  employment;  and  that  to  insure  the  full 
and  impartial  application  of  tliese  principles  the  assessment  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  compensation,  so  far  as  the  cost  is  contributed  by 
any  international  fund,  should  be  made  under  the  direction  of  an 
international  Commission. 

The  Conference  will  not  be  satisfied  tmless  there  is  a  full  and 
free  judicial  investigation  into  the  accusations  made  on  all  sides 
that    particular    governments   have    ordered,    and    particular    officers 


APPENDIX  I  109 

have  exercised,  acts  of  cruelty,  oppression,  violence  and  theft  against 
individual  victims,  for  which  no  justification  can  be  found  in  the 
ordinary  usages  of  war.  It  draws  attention  in  particular  to  the  loss 
of  life  and  property  of  merchant  seamen  and  other  non-combatants 
(including  women  and  children)  resulting  from  this  inhuman  and 
ruthless  conduct.  It  should  be  part  of  the  conditions  of  peace  that 
there  should  be  forthwith  set  up  a  Court  of  Claims  and  Accusations, 
which  should  investigate  all  such  allegations  as  may  be  brought 
before  it,  summon  the  accused  person  or  government  to  answer  the 
complaint,  to  pronounce  judgment,  and  award  compensation  or  dam- 
ages, payable  by  the  individual  or  government  condemned,  to  the 
persons  who  had  suffered  wrong,  or  to  their  dependents.  The  sev- 
eral governments  must  be  responsible,  financially  and  otherwise,  for 
the  presentation  of  the  cases  of  their  respective  nationals  to  such  a 
Court  of  Claims  and  Accusations,  and  for  the  payment  of  the  com- 
pensation awarded. 

INTERNATIONAL  CONFERENCE 

VII.  The  Inter-Allied  Conference  is  of  opinion  that  an  Interna- 
tional Conference  of  Laboiu-  and  Socialist  organisations,  held  under 
proper  conditions,  would  at  this  stage  render  useful  service  to  world 
democracy  by  assisting  to  remove  misunderstandings,  as  well  as  the 
obstacles  which  stand  in  the  way  of  world  peace. 

Awaiting  the  resumption  of  the  normal  activities  of  the  Interna- 
tional Socialist  Btireau,  we  consider  that  an  International  Confer- 
ence, held  during  the  period  of  hostilities,  should  be  organised  by  a 
committee  whose  impartiality  cannot  be  questioned.  It  should  be 
held  in  a  neutral  coimtry,  imder  such  conditions  as  would  inspire 
confidence;  and  the  Conference  should  be  fully  representative  of  all 
the  labour  and  Socialist  movement  in  all  the  belligerent  countries 
accepting  the  conditions  under  which  the  Conference  is  convoked. 

As  an  essential  condition  to  an  International  Conference  the  Com- 
mission is  of  opinion  that  the  organisers  of  the  Conference  should 
satisfy  themselves  that  all  the  organisations  to  be  represented  put 
in  precise  form,  by  a  public  declaration,  their  peace  terms  in 
conformity  with  the  principles  "no  annexations  or  punitive  in- 
demnities, and  the  right  of  all  peoples  to  self-determination," 
and  that  they  are  working  with  all  their  power  to  obtain  from 
their  governments  the  necessary  guarantees  to  apply  those  principles 
honestly  and  unreservedly  to  all  questions  to  be  dealt  with  at  any 
official  peace  conference. 

In  view  of  the  vital  differences  between  the  Allied  countries  and 
the  Central  Powers,  the  Commission  is  of  opinion  that  it  is  highly  ad- 
visable that  the  Conference  should  be  used  to  provide  an  opportunity 
for  the  delegates  from  the  respective  coimtries  now  in  a  state  of 
war  to  make  a  full  and  frank  statement  of  their  present  position 
and  future  intentions,  and  to  endeavour  by  mutual  agreement  to 
arrange  a  programme  of  action  for  a  speedy  and  democratic  peace. 

The   Conference   is  of  opinion   that  the  working  classes,   having 


110  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

made  such  sacrifices  during  the  war,  are  entitled  to  take  part  in 
securing  a  democratic  world  peace,  and  that  M.  Albert  Thomas 
(France),  M.  Emile  Vandervelde  (Belgium)  and  Mr.  Arthur  Hen- 
derson (Great  Britain)  be  appointed  as  a  commission  to  secure  from 
all  Uie  governments  a  promise  that  at  least  one  representative  of 
Labour  and  Socialism  will  be  included  in  the  official  representation 
at  any  government  conference,  and  to  organise  a  Labour  and  So- 
cialist representation  to  sit  concurrently  with  the  official  confer- 
ence; further,  that  no  country  be  entitled  to  more  than  four  repre- 
sentatives at  such  conference. 

The  Conference  regrets  the  absence  of  representatives  of  American 
labour  and  Socialism  from  the  Inter-Allied  Conference,  and  urges 
the  importance  of  securing  their  approval  of  the  decisions  reached. 
With  this  object  in  view,  the  Conference  agrees  that  a  deputation, 
consisting  of  one  representative  from  France,  Belgium,  Italy  and 
Great  Britain,  together  with  Camille  Huysmans  (Secretary  of  the 
International  Socialist  Bureau),  proceed  to  the  United  States  at 
once,  in  order  to  confer  with  representatives  of  the  American  democ- 
racy on  the  whole  situation  of  the  war. 

The  Conference  resolves  to  transmit  to  the  Socialists  of  the  Central 
Empires  and  of  the  nations  allied  with  them  the  memorandum  in 
which  the  Conference  has  defined  the  conditions  of  peace,  conform- 
ably with  the  principles  of  Socialist  and  international  justice.  The 
Conference  is  convinced  that  these  conditions  will  commend  them- 
selves on  reflectiotj  to  the  mind  of  every  Socialist,  and  the  Confer- 
ence asks  for  the  answer  of  the  Socialists  of  the  Central  Empires,  in 
the  hope  that  these  will  join  without  delay  in  a  joint  effort  of  the 
International,  which  has  now  become  more  than  ever  the  best  and 
the  most  certain  instnmient  of  democracy  and  peace. 


APPENDIX  11 

LABOUR  AND  THE  NEW  SOCIAL  ORDER 

A  DRAFT  REPORT  ON  RE-CONSTRUCTION 

[The  following  Draft  Report  on  the  General  Policy  of  the  Party  on 
"Reconstruction"  has  been  prepared  by  a  Sub-Committee  of  the 
Executive  for  the  consideration  of  the  Party;  and  is  submitted  by  the 
Executive  to  the  annual  Conference  at  Nottingham,  not  for  adoption 
hut  with  a  view  to  its  being  specially  referred  to  the  constituent  organ- 
isations for  discussion  and  eventual  submission  to  the  Party  Confer- 
ence to  be  arranged  for  June  next,  or  a  special  Conference  should  a 
General  Election  render  it  necessary.} 

It  behoves  the  Labour  Party,  in  formulating  its  own  programme 
for  Reconstruction  after  the  war,  and  in  criticising  the  various 
preparations  and  plans  that  are  being  made  by  the  present  Govern- 
ment, to  look  at  the  problem  as  a  whole.  We  have  to  make  it  clear 
what  it  is  that  we  wish  to  construct.  It  is  important  to  emphasise 
the  fact  that,  whatever  may  be  the  case  with  regard  to  other  political 
parties,  our  detailed  practical  proposals  proceed  from  definitely  held 
principles. 

THE  END  OF  A  CIVILISATION 

We  need  to  beware  of  patchwork.  The  view  of  the  Labour  Party 
is  that  what  has  to  be  reconstructed  after  the  war  is  not  this  or  that 
Government  Department,  or  this  or  that  piece  of  social  machinery ; 
but,  so  far  as  Britain  is  concerned,  society  itself.  The  individual 
worker,  or  for  that  matter  the  individual  statesman,  immersed  in 
daily  routine — like  the  individual  soldier  in  a  battle — easily  fails  to 
understand  the  magnitude  and  far-reaching  importance  of  what  is 
taking  place  around  him.  How  does  it  fit  together  as  a  whole? 
How  does  it  look  from  a  distance?  Count  Okuma,  one  of  the  oldest, 
most  experienced  and  ablest  of  the  statesmen  of  Japan,  watching  the 
present  conflict  from  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  declares  it  to  be 
nothing  less  than  the  death  of  European  civilisation.  Just  as  in  the 
past  the  civilisations  of  Babylon,  Egypt,  Greece,  Carthage,  and  the 
great  Roman  Empire  have  been  successively  destroyed,  so,  in  the 
judgment  of  this  detached  observer,  the  civilisation  of  all  Europe  is 
even  now  receiving  its  death-blow.  We  of  the  Labour  Party  can 
so  far  agree  in  this  estimate  as  to  recognise,  in  the  present  world 
catastrophe,  if  not  the  death,  in  Europe,  of  civilisation  itself,  at  any 

III 


112  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

rate  the  culmination  and  collapse  of  a  distinctive  industrial  civili- 
sation, which  the  workers  will  not  seek  to  reconstruct.  At  such 
times  of  crisis  it  is  easier  to  slip  into  ruin  than  to  progress  into  higher 
forms  of  organisation.  That  is  tlie  problem  as  it  presents  itself  to 
the   Labour  Party  to-day. 

What  this  war  is  consuming  is  not  merely  the  security,  the  homes, 
the  livelihood  and  the  lives  of  millions  of  innocent  families,  and  an 
enormous  proportion  of  all  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  world, 
but  also  the  very  basis  of  the  peculiar  social  order  in  which  it  has 
arisen.  The  individualist  system  of  capitalist  production,  based 
on  the  private  ownership  and  competitive  administration  of  land  and 
capital,  with  its  reckless  "profiteering"  and  wage-slavery;  with 
its  glorification  of  the  unhampered  struggle  for  the  means  of  life  and 
its  hypocritical  pretence  of  the  "survival  of  the  fittest";  with  the 
monstrous  inequality  of  circumstances  which  it  produces  and  the 
degradation  and  brutalisation,  both  moral  and  spiritual,  resulting 
therefrom,  may,  we  hope,  indeed  have  received  a  death-blow.  With 
it  must  go  the  political  system  and  ideas  in  which  it  naturally  found 
expression.  We  of  the  Labour  Party,  whether  in  opposition  or  in 
due  time  called  upon  to  form  an  Administration,  will  certainly  lend 
no  hand  to  its  revival.  On  the  contrary,  we  shall  do  our  utmost  to 
see  that  it  is  buried  with  the  millions  whom  it  has  done  to  death.  If 
we  in  Britain  are  to  escape  from  the  decay  of  civilisation  itself,  which 
the  Japanese  statesman  foresees,  we  must  ensure  that  what  is 
presently  to  be  built  up  is  a  new  social  order,  based  not  on  fighting, 
but  on  fraternity — not  on  the  competitive  struggle  for  the  means 
of  bare  life,  but  on  a  deliberately  planned  co-operation  in  production 
and  distribution  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  participate  by  hand  or  by 
brain — not  on  the  utmost  possible  inequality  of  riches,  but  on  a 
systematic  approach  towards  a  healthy  equality  of  material  cir- 
cumstances for  every  person  bom  into  the  world — not  on  an  enforced 
dominion  over  subject  nations,  subject  races,  subject  Colonies,  subject 
classes  or  a  subject  sex,  but,  in  industry  as  well  as  in  government, 
on  that  equal  freedom,  that  general  consciousness  of  consent,  and 
that  widest  possible  participation  in  power,  both  economic  and 
political,  which  is  characteristic  of  Democracy.  We  do  not,  of 
course  pretend  that  it  is  possible,  even  after  the  drastic  clearing  away 
that  is  now  going  on,  to  build  society  anew  in  a  year  or  two  of 
feverish  "Reconstruction."  What  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  satisfy 
itself  about  is  that  each  brick  that  it  helps  to  lay  shall  go  to  erect  the 
structure  that  it  intends,  and  no  other. 

THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  HOUSE 

We  need  not  here  recapitulate,  one  by  one,  the  different  items  in 
the  Labour  Party's  programme,  which  successive  Party  Conferences 
have  adopted.  These  proposals,  some  of  them  in  various  publi- 
cations worked  out  in  practical  detail,  are  often  carelessly  derided 
as  impracticable,  even  by  the  politicians  who  steal  them  piecemeal 
from  us!    The  members  of  the  Labour  Party,  themselves  actually 


APPENDIX  II     •  113 

working  by  hand  or  by  brain,  in  close  contact  with  the  facts,  have 
perhaps  at  all  times  a  more  accurate  appreciation  of  what  is  practi- 
cable, in  industry  as  in  politics,  than  those  who  depend  solely  on 
academic  instruction  or  are  biased  by  great  possessions.  But  to-day 
no  man  dares  to  say  that  anything  is  impracticable.  The  war, 
which  has  scared  the  old  Political  Parties  right  out  of  their  dogmas, 
has  taught  every  statesman  and  every  Government  official,  to  his 
enduring  surprise,  how  very  much  more  can  be  done  along  the  lines 
that  we  have  laid  down  than  he  had  ever  before  thought  possible. 
What  we  now  promulgate  as  our  policy,  whether  for  opposition  or  for 
office,  is  not  merely  this  or  that  specific  reform,  but  a  deliberately 
thought-out,  systematic,  and  comprehensive  plan  for  that  immediate 
social  rebuilding  which  any  Ministry,  whether  or  not  it  desires  to 
grapple  with  the  problem,  will  be  driven  to  imdertake.  The  Four 
Pillars  of  the  House  that  we  propose  to  erect,  resting  upon  the 
common  foundation  of  the  Democratic  control  of  society  in  all  its 
activities,  may  be  termed,  respectively: 

(a)  The  Universal  Enforcement  of  the  National  Minimum ; 

(6)  The  Democratic  Control  of  Industry; 

(c)  The  Revolution  in  National  Finance;  and 

(d)  The  Surplus  Wealth  for  the  Common  Good. 

The  various  detailed  proposals  of  the  Labour  Party,  herein  briefly 
summarised,  rest  on  these  four  pillars,  and  can  best  be  appreciated 
in  connection  with  them. 

THE    UNIVERSAL   ENFORCEMENT   OF   A  NATIONAL 

MINIMUM 

The  first  principle  of  the  Labour  Party — in  significant  contrast 
with  those  of  the  Capitalist  System,  whether  expressed  by  the  Liberal 
or  by  the  Conservative  Party — is  the  securing  to  every  member  of 
the  commimity,  in  good  times  and  bad  alike  (and  not  only  to  the 
strong  and  able,  the  well-bom  or  the  fortunate),  of  all  the  requisites 
of  healthy  life  and  worthy  citizenship.  This  is  in  no  sense  a  "class" 
proposal.  Such  an  amount  of  social  protection  of  the  individual, 
however  poor  and  lowly,  from  birth  to  death  is,  as  the  economist 
now  knows,  as  indispensable  to  fruitful  co-operation  as  it  is  to 
successful  combination ;  and  it  affords  the  only  complete  safeguard 
against  that  insidious  Degradation  of  the  Standard  of  Life,  which  is 
the  worst  economic  and  social  calamity  to  which  any  community  can 
be  subjected.  We  are  members  one  of  another.  No  man  liveth  to 
himself  alone.  If  any,  even  the  humblest  is  made  to  suffer,  the  whole 
community  and  every  one  of  us,  whether  or  not  we  recognise  the  fact, 
is  thereby  injured.  Generation  after  generation  this  has  been  the 
comer-stone  of  the  faith  of  Labour.  It  will  be  the  guiding  principle 
of  any  Labour  Government. 

The  Legislative  Regulaxion  of  Employment 

Thus  it  is  that  the  Labour  Party  to-day  stands  for  the  universal 
application  of  the  Policy  of  the  National  Minimum,  to  which   (as 


114  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

embodied  in  the  successive  elaborations  of  the  Factory,  Mines, 
Railways,  Shops,  Merchant  Shipping,  and  Truck  Acts,  the  Public 
Health,  Housing,  and  Education  Acts  and  the  minimum  Wage  Act — 
all  of  them  aiming  at  the  enforcement  of  at  least  the  prescribed 
Minimum  of  Leisure,  Health,  Education,  and  Subsistence)  the 
spokesmen  of  Labour  have  already  gained  the  support  of  the  en- 
lightened statesmen  and  economists  of  the  world.  All  these  laws 
purporting  to  protect  against  extreme  Degradation  of  the  Standard 
of  Life  need  considerable  improvement  and  extension,  whilst  their 
administration  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  For  instance,  the  Work- 
men's Compensation  Act  fails,  shamefully,  not  merely  to  secure 
proper  provision  for  all  the  victims  of  accident  and  industrial  disease, 
but  what  is  much  more  important,  does  not  succeed  in  preventing 
their  continual  increase.  The  amendment  and  consolidation  of  the 
Factories  and  Workshop  Acts,  with  their  extension  to  all  employed 
persons,  is  long  overdue,  and  it  will  be  the  policy  of  Labour  greatly 
to  strengthen  the  staff  of  inspectors,  especially  by  the  addition  of 
more  men  and  women  of  actual  experience  of  the  workshop  and  the 
mine.  The  Coal  Mines  (Minimum  Wage)  Act  must  certainly  be 
maintained  in  force,  and  suitably  amended,  so  as  both  to  ensure 
greater  uniformity  of  conditions  among  the  several  districts,  and  to 
make  the  District  Minimum  in  all  cases  an  effective  reality.  The 
same  policy  will,  in  the  interests  of  the  agricultural  labourers,  dictate 
the  perpetuation  of  the  Legal  Wage  clauses  of  the  new  Corn  Law 
just  passed  for  a  term  of  five  years,  and  the  prompt  amendment  of  any 
defects  that  may  be  revealed  in  their  working.  And,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  many  millions  of  wage-earners,  notably  women  and  the  less- 
skilled  workmen  in  various  occupations,  are  unable  by  combination 
to  obtain  wages  adequate  for  decent  maintenance  in  health,  the 
Labour  Party  intends  to  see  that  the  Trade  Boards  Act  is  suitably 
amended  and  made  to  apply  to  all  industrial  employments  in  which 
any  considerable  number  of  those  employed  obtain  less  than  30s. 
per  week.  This  minimum  of  not  less  than  30s.  per  week  (which  will 
need  revision  according  to  the  level  of  prices)  ought  to  be  the  very 
lowest  statutory  base  line  for  the  least  skilled  adult  workers,  men 
or  women,  in  any  occupation,  in  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

The  Organisation  of  Demobilisation 

But  the  coming  industrial  dislocation,  which  will  inevitably 
follow  the  discharge  from  war  service  of  half  of  all  the  working 
population,  imposes  new  obligations  upon  the  community.  The 
demobilisation  and  discharge  of  the  eight  million  wage-earners 
now  being  paid  from  public  funds,  either  for  service  with  the  colours 
or  in  munition  work  and  other  war  trades,  will  bring  to  the  whole 
wage-earning  class  grave  peril  of  Unemployment,  Reduction  of 
Wages,  and  a  Lasting  Degradation  of  the  Standard  of  Life,  which 
can  be  prevented  only  by  deliberate  National  Organisation.  The 
Labour  Party  has  repeatedly  called  upon  the  present  Government 
to  formulate   its  plan,   and  to   make   in  advance  all  arrangements 


APPENDIX  II  115 

necessary  for  coping  with  so  unparalleled  a  dislocation.  The  policy 
to  which  the  Labour  Party  commits  itself  is  unhesitating  and  un- 
compromising. It  is  plain  that  regard  should  be  had,  in  stopping 
Government  orders,  reducing  the  staff  of  the  National  Factories  and 
demobilising  the  Army,  to  the  actual  state  of  employment  m  particu- 
lar industries  and  in  different  districts,  so  as  both  to  release  first  the 
kinds  of  labour  most  urgently  required  for  the  revival  of  peace 
production,  and  to  prevent  any  congestion  of  the  market.  It  is 
no  less  imperative  tliat  suitable  provision  against  being  turned 
suddenly  adrift  without  resources  should  be  made,  not  only  for 
the  soldiers,  but  also  for  the  three  million  operatives  in  munition 
work  and  other  war  trades,  who  will  be  discharged  long  before 
most  of  the  Army  can  be  disbanded.  On  this  important  point, 
which  is  the  most  urgent  of  all,  the  present  Government  has,  we 
believe,  down  to  the  present  hour,  formulated  no  plan,  and  come  to 
no  decision,  and  neither  the  Liberal  nor  the  Conservative  Party 
has  apparently  deemed  the  matter  worthy  of  agitation.  Any  Gov- 
ernment which  should  allow  the  discharged  soldier  or  munition 
worker  to  fall  into  the  clutches  of  charity  or  the  Poor  Law  would 
have  to  be  instantly  driven  from  office  by  an  outburst  of  popular 
indignation.  What  every  one  of  them  who  is  not  wholly  disabled 
will  look  for  is  a  situation  in  accordance  with  his  capacity. 

Securing  Employment  for  All 

The  Labour  Party  insists — as  no  other  political  party  has  thought 
fit  to  do — that  the  obligation  to  find  suitable  employment  in  pro- 
ductive work  for  all  these  men  and  women  rests  upon  the  Govern- 
ment for  the  time  being.  The  work  of  re-settling  the  disbanded 
soldiers  and  discharged  munition  workers  into  new  situations  is  a 
national  obligation;  and  the  Labour  Party  emphatically  protests 
against  it  being  regarded  as  a  matter  for  private  charity.  It  strongly 
objects  to  this  public  duty  being  handed  over  either  to  committees  of 
philanthropists  or  benevolent  societies,  or  to  any  of  the  military  or 
recruiting  authorities.  The  policy  of  the  Labour  Party  in  this  matter 
is  to  make  the  utmost  use  of  the  Trade  Unions,  and  equally  for  the 
brain  workers,  of  the  various  Professional  Associations.  In  view  of 
the  fact  that,  in  any  trade,  the  best  organisation  for  placing  men  in 
situations  is  a  national  Trade  Union  having  local  branches  through- 
out the  kingdom,  every  soldier  should  be  allowed,  if  he  chooses,  to 
have  a  duplicate  of  his  industrial  discharge  notice  sent  out,  one 
month  before  the  date  fixed  for  his  discharge,  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Trade  Union  to  which  he  belongs  or  wishes  to  belong.  Apart 
from  this  use  of  the  Trade  Union  (and  a  corresponding  use  of  the 
Professional  Association)  the  Government  must,  of  course,  avail 
itself  of  some  such  public  machinery  as  that  of  the  Employment 
Exchanges;  but  before  the  existing  Exchanges  (which  will  need  to  be 
greatly  extended)  can  receive  tlie  co-operation  and  support  of  the 
organised  Labour  Movement,  without  which  their  operations  can 
never  be  fully  successful,  it  is  imperative  that  they  should  be  drasti- 


116  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

cally  reformed,  on  the  lines  laid  down  in  the  Demobilisation  Report 
of  the  "Labour  after  the  War"  Joint  Committee;  and,  in  particular, 
that  each  Exchange  should  be  placed  effectively  under  the  super- 
vision and  control  of  a  Joint  Committee  of  Employers  and  Trade 
Unionists  in  equal  numbers. 

The  responsibility  of  the  Government,  for  the  time  being,  in 
the  grave  industrial  crisis  that  demobilisation  will  produce,  goes, 
however,  far  beyond  the  eight  million  men  and  women  whom  the 
various  departments  will  suddenly  discharge  from  their  own  service. 
The  effect  of  this  peremptory  discharge  on  all  the  other  workers  has 
also  to  be  taken  into  account.  To  the  Labour  Party  it  will  seem  the 
supreme  concern  of  the  Government  of  the  day  to  see  to  it  that  there 
shall  be,  as  a  result  of  the  gigantic  "General  Post"  which  it  will 
itself  have  deliberately  set  going,  nowhere  any  Degradation  of  the 
Standard  of  Life.  The  Government  has  pledged  itself  to  restore 
the  Trade  Union  conditions  and  "pre-war  practices"  of  the  work- 
shop, which  the  Trade  Unions  patriotically  gave  up  at  the  direct 
request  of  the  Government  itself;  and  this  solemn  pledge  must  be 
fulfilled,  of  course,  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the  letter.  The  Labour 
Party,  moreover,  holds  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  of  the 
day  to  take  all  necessary  steps  to  prevent  the  Standard  Rates  of 
Wages,  in  any  trade  or  occupation  whatsoever,  from  suffering  any 
reduction,  relatively  to  the  contemporai-y  cost  of  living.  Un- 
fortunately, the  present  Government,  like  the  Liberal  and  Conser- 
vative Parties,  so  far  refuses  to  speak  on  this  important  matter  with 
any  clear  voice.  We  claim  that  it  should  be  a  cardinal  point  of 
Government  policy  to  make  it  plain  to  every  capitalist  employer 
that  any  attempt  to  reduce  the  customary  rate  of  wages  when  peace 
comes,  or  to  take  advantage  of  the  dislocation  of  demobilisation  to 
worsen  the  conditions  of  employment  in  any  grade  whatsoever,  will 
certainly  lead  to  embittered  industrial  strife,  which  will  be  in  the 
highest  degree  detrimental  to  the  national  interests;  and  that  the 
Government  of  the  day  will  not  hesitate  to  take  all  necessary  steps 
to  avert  such  a  calamity.  In  the  great  impending  crisis  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day  should  not  only,  as  the  greatest  employer  of  both 
brainworkers  and  manual  workers,  set  a  good  example  in  this  respect 
but  should  also  actively  seek  to  influence  private  employers  by  pro- 
claiming in  advance  that  it  will  not  itself  attempt  to  lower  the 
Standard  Rates  of  conditions  in  public  employment;  by  announcing 
that  it  will  insist  on  the  most  rigorous  observance  of  the  Fair  Wages 
Clause  in  all  public  contracts,  and  by  explicitly  recommending  every 
Local  Authority  to  adopt  the  same  policy. 

But  nothing  is  more  dangerous  to  the  Standard  of  Life,  or  so 
destructive  of  those  minimum  conditions  of  healthy  existence,  which 
must  in  the  interests  of  the  community  be  assured  to  every  worker, 
than  any  widespread  or  continued  imemployment.  It  has  always 
been  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Labour  Party  (a  point  on  which 
significantly  enough  it  has  not  been  followed  by  either  of  the  other 
political  parties)  that  in  a  modern  industrial  community,  it  is  one  of 
the  foremost  obligations  of  the  Government  to  find,  for  every  willing 


APPENDIX  II  117 

worker,  whether  by  hand  or  by  brain,  productive  work  at  Standard 
Rates. 

It  is  accordingly  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  adopt  a  policy 
of  deliberately  and  systematically  preventing  the  occurrence  of  un- 
employment, instead  of  (as  heretofore)  letting  unemployment  occur, 
and  then  seeking,  vamly  and  expensively,  to  relieve  the  unemployed. 
It  is  now  known  that  the  Government  can,  if  it  chooses,  arrange  the 
Public  Works  and  the  orders  of  National  Departments  and  Local 
Authorities  in  such  a  way  as  to  maintain  the  aggregate  demand 
for  labour  in  the  whole  kingdom  (including  that  of  capitalist  em- 
ployers) approximately  at  a  imiform  level  from  year  to 
year;  and  it  is  therefore  a  primary  obligation  of  the  Government 
to  prevent  any  considerable  or  widespread  fluctuations  in  the  total 
numbers  employed  in  times  of  good  or  bad  trade.  But  this  is 
not  all.  In  order  to  prepare  for  the  possibility  of  there  being  any 
unemployment,  either  in  the  course  of  demobilisation  or  in  the  first 
years  of  peace,  it  is  essential  that  the  Government  should  make  all 
necessary  preparations  for  putting  instantly  in  hand,  directly  or 
through  the  Local  Authorities,  such  urgently  needed  public  works  as 
(a)  the  rehousing  of  the  population  alike  in  rural  districts,  mining 
villages,  and  town  slums,  to  the  extent,  possibly,  of  a  million  new 
cottages  and  an  outlay  of  300  millions  sterling;  (6)  the  immediate 
making  good  of  the  shortage  of  schools,  training  colleges,  technical 
colleges,  &c.,  and  the  engagement  of  the  necessary  additional  teach- 
ing, clerical  and  administrative  staffs;  (c)  new  roads;  (d)  light 
railways;  (e)  the  unification  and  reorganisation  of  the  railway  and 
canal  system;  (/)  afforestation;  (g)  tlie  reclamation  of  land;  {h)  the 
development  and  better  equipment  of  our  ports  and  harbours;  (») 
the  opening  up  of  access  to  land  by  co-operative  small  holdings  and  in 
other  practicable  ways.  Moreover,  in  order  to  relieve  any  pressure 
of  an  overstocked  labour  market,  the  opportunity  should  be  taken, 
if  unemployment  should  threaten  to  become  widespread,  (a)  im- 
mediately to  raise  the  school  leaving  age  to  sixteen;  (6)  greatly  to 
increase  the  number  of  scholarships  and  bursaries  for  Secondary  and 
Higher  Education;  and  (c)  substantially  to  shorten  the  hours  of 
labour  of  all  young  persons,  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  the  eight 
hours  per  week  contemplated  in  the  new  Education  Bill,  in  order 
to  enable  them  to  attend  technical  and  other  classes  in  the  daytime. 
Finally,  wherever  practicable,  the  hours  of  adult  labour  should  be 
reduced  to  not  more  than  forty-eight  per  week,  without  reduction  of 
the  Standard  Rates  of  Wages.  There  can  be  no  economic  or  other 
justification  for  keeping  any  man  or  woman  to  work  for  long  hours, 
or  at  overtime,  whilst  others  are  unemployed. 

SoaAL  Insurance  Against  Unemployment 

In  so  far  as  the  Government  fails  to  prevent  Unemployment — 
wherever  it  finds  it  impossible  to  discover  for  any  willing  worker, 
man  or  woman,  a  suitable  situation  at  the  Standard  Rate — the 
Labour  Party  hplds  that  the  Government  must,  in  the  interest  of 


118  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

the  community  as  a  whole,  provide  him  or  her  with  adequate  main- 
tenance, either  with  such  arrangements  for  honourable  employment 
or  with  such  useful  training  as  may  be  found  practicable,  according 
to  age,  health  and  previous  occupation.  In  many  ways  the  best  form 
of  provision  for  those  who  must  be  unemployed,  because  the  industrial 
organisation  of  the  community  so  far  breaks  down  as  to  be  tem- 
porarily unable  to  set  them  to  work,  is  the  Out  of  Work  Benefit 
afforded  by  a  well  administered  Trade  Union.  This  is  a  special  tax 
on  the  Trade  Unionists  themselves  which  they  have  voluntarily 
undertaken,  but  towards  which  they  have  a  right  to  claim  a  public 
subvention — a  subvention  which  was  actually  granted  by  Parliament 
(though  only  to  the  extent  of  a  couple  of  shillings  or  so  per  week) 
under  Part  II.  of  the  Insurance  Act.  The  arbitrary  withdrawal  by 
the  Government  in  1915  of  this  statutory  right  of  tlie  Trade  Unions 
was  one  of  the  least  excusable  of  the  war  economies;  and  the  Labour 
Party  must  insist  on  the  resumption  of  this  subvention  immediately 
the  war  ceases,  and  on  its  increase  to  at  least  half  the  amount  spent 
in  Out  of  Work  Benefit.  The  extension  of  State  Unemployment 
Insurance  to  other  occupations  may  afford  a  convenient  method  of 
providing  for  such  of  the  Unemployed,  especially  in  the  case  of 
badly  paid  women  workers,  and  the  less  skilled  men,  v/hom  it  is 
diftjcult  to  organise  in  Trade  Unions.  But  the  weekly  rale  of  the 
State  Unemployment  Benefits  needs,  in  these  days  of  high  prices,  to 
be  considerably  raised;  whilst  no  industry  ought  to  be  compul- 
sorily  brought  within  its  scope  against  the  declared  will  of  the 
workers  concerned,  and  especially  of  their  Trade  Unions.  In  one 
way  or  another  remunerative  employment  or  honourable  mainte- 
nance must  be  found  for  every  willing  worker,  by  hand  or  by  brain, 
in  bad  times  as  well  as  in  good.  It  is  clear  that,  in  the  twentieth 
century,  there  must  be  no  question  of  driving  tlie  Unemployed  to 
anything  so  obsolete  and  discredited  as  either  private  charity,  with 
its  haphazard  and  ill-considered  doles,  or  the  Poor  Law,  with  the 
futilities  and  barbarities  of  its  "Stone  Yard,"  or  its  "Able-bodied 
Test  Workhouse."  Only  on  the  basis  of  a  universal  application  of 
the  Policy  of  the  National  Minimum,  affording  complete  security 
against  destitution,  in  sickness  and  health,  in  good  times  and  bnd 
alike,  to  every  member  of  tlie  community  of  whatever  age  or  sex, 
can  any  worthy  social  order  be  built  up. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  CONTROL  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  universal  application  of  the  Policy  of  the  National  Mininmm 
is,  of  course,  only  the  first  of  the  Pillars  of  the  House  that  the  Labour 
Party  intends  to  see  built.  What  marks  off  this  Party  most  dis- 
tinctively from  any  of  the  otlier  political  parties  is  its  demand  for 
the  full  and  genuine  adoption  of  the  principle  of  Democracy.  The 
first  condition  of  Democracy  is  effective  personal  freedom.  This  has 
suffered  so  many  encroachments  during  the  war  that  it  is  necessary 
to  state  with  clearness  that  the  complete  removal  of  all  the  war- 
time   restrictions    on    freedom    of    speech,    freedom    of   publication, 


APPENDIX  II  119 

freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  travel  and  freedom  of  choice  of  place 
of  residence  and  kind  of  employment  must  take  place  the  day  after 
Peace  is  declared.  The  Labour  Party  declared  emphatically  against 
any  continuance  of  the  Military  Service  Acts  a  moment  longer  than 
the  imperative  requirements  of  the  war  excuse.  But  individual 
freedom  is  of  little  use  without  complete  political  rights.  The 
Labour  Party  sees  its  repeated  demands  largely  conceded  in  tlie 
present  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  but  not  yet  wholly  satis- 
fied. The  Party  stands,  as  heretofore,  for  complete  Adult  Suffrage, 
with  not  more  than  a  three  months'  residential  qualification,  for 
effective  provision  for  absent  electors  to  vote,  for  absolutely  equal 
rights  for  both  sexes,  for  the  same  freedom  to  exercise  civic  rights 
for  the  "common  soldier"  as  for  the  officer,  for  Shorter  Parliaments, 
for  the  complete  Abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  for  a  most 
strenuous  opposition  to  any  new  Second  Chamber,  whether  elected 
or  not,  having  in  it  any  element  of  Heredity  or  Privilege,  or  of  the 
control  of  the  House  of  Commons  by  any  party  or  class.  But 
unlike  the  Conservative  and  Liberal  Parties,  the  Labour  Party 
insists  on  Democracy  in  industry  as  well  as  in  government.  It 
demands  the  progressive  elimination  from  the  control  of  industry 
of  the  private  capitalist,  individual  or  joint-stock;  and  the  setting 
free  of  all  who  work,  whether  by  hand  or  by  brain,  for  the  service  of 
the  community,  and  of  the  community  only.  And  the  Labour 
Party  refuses  absolutely  to  believe  tliat  the  British  people  will 
permanently  tolerate  any  reconstruction  or  perpetuation  of  the  dis- 
organisation, waste  and  uiefficiency  involved  in  the  abandonment  of 
British  industry  to  a  jostling  crowd  of  separate  private  employers, 
with  their  minds  bent,  not  on  the  service  of  the  community,  but — 
by  the  very  law  of  their  being — only  on  the  utmost  possible  profi- 
teering. What  the  nation  needs  is  undoubtedly  a  great  bound 
onwards  in  its  aggregate  productivity.  But  this  cannot  be  secured 
merely  by  pressing  the  manual  workers  to  more  strenuous  toil,  or 
even  by  encouraging  the  "Captains  of  Industry",  to  a  less  wasteful 
organisation  of  tlieir  several  enterprises  on  a  profit-making  basis. 
What  the  Labour  Party  looks  to  is  a  genuinely  scientific  reorgani- 
sation of  the  nation's  industry,  no  longer  deflected  by  individual 
profiteering,  on  the  basis  of  the  Common  Ownership  of  the  means  of 
Production ;  the  equitable  sharing  of  the  proceeds  among  all  who 
participate  in  any  capacity  and  only  among  these,  and  the  adoption, 
in  particular  services  and  occupation,  of  those  systems  and  methods 
of  administration  and  control  tliat  may  be  found,  in  practice,  best 
to  promote,  not  profiteering,  but  the  public  interest. 

Immediate  Nationalisation 

The  Labour  Party  stands  not  merely  for  the  principle  of  the 
Common  Ownership  of  the  nation's  land,  to  be  applied  as  suitable 
opportunities  occur,  but  also,  specifically,  for  the  immediate 
Nationalisation  of  Railways,  Mines,  and  the  production  of  Electrical 
Power.     We   hold   that   the   very   foundation   of  any  successful  re- 


120  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

organisation  of  British  Industry  must  necessarily  be  found  in  the 
provision  of  the  utmost  facilities  for  transport  and  communication, 
the  production  of  power  at  the  cheapest  possible  rate,  and  the  most 
economical  supply  of  both  electrical  energy  and  coal  to  every  corner 
of  the  kingdom.  Hence  the  Labour  Party  stands,  unhesitatingly, 
for  the  National  Ownership  and  administration  of  the  Railways  and 
Canals,  and  their  miion,  along  with  Harbours  and  Roads  and  the 
Posts  and  Telegraphs — not  to  say  also  tlie  great  lines  of  steamers 
which  could  at  once  be  owned,  if  not  immediately  directly  managed 
in  detail,  by  the  Government — in  a  united  national  service  of  Com- 
munication and  Transport;  to  be  worked,  imhampered  by  capitalist, 
private  or  purely  local  interests  (and  with  a  steadily  increasing  par- 
ticipation of  tlie  organised  workers  in  the  management,  both  central 
and  local),  exclusively  for  the  common  good.  If  any  Government 
should  be  so  misguided  as  to  propose,  when  peace  comes,  to  hand  the 
railways  back  to  the  shareholders;  or  should  show  itself  so  spend- 
thrift of  the  nation's  property  as  to  give  these  shareholders  any  en- 
larged franchise  by  presenting  them  with  the  economies  of  unifica- 
tion or  the  profits  of  increased  railway  rates;  or  so  extravagant 
as  to  bestow  public  fimds  on  the  re-equipment  of  privately  owned 
lines — all  of  which  things  are  now  being  privately  intrigued  for  by  the 
railway  interests — the  Labour  Party  will  offer  any  such  project  the 
most  strenuous  opposition.  The  railways  and  canals,  like  the  roads, 
must  henceforth  belong  to  the  public,  and  to  the  public  alone. 

In  the  production  of  Electricity,  for  cheap  Power,  Light  and 
Heating,  this  country  has  so  far  failed,  because  of  hampering  private 
interests,  to  take  advantage  of  science.  Even  in  the  largest  cities 
we  still  "peddle"  our  Electricity  on  a  contemi)tibly  small  scale. 
What  is  called  for,  immediately  after  the  war,  is  the  erection  of  a 
score  of  gigantic  "super-power  stations,"  which  could  generate,  at 
incredibly  cheap  rates,  enough  electricity  for  the  use  of  every 
industrial  establishment  and  every  private  household  in  Great 
Britain;  the  present  municipal  and  joint-stock  electrical  plants 
being  universally  linked  up  and  used  for  local  distribution.  This  is 
inevitably  the  future  of  Electricity.  It  is  plain  tliat  so  great  and  so 
powerful  an  enterprise,  affecting  every  industrial  enterprise  and, 
eventually  every  household,  must  not  be  allowed  to  pass  into  the 
hands  of  private  capitalists.  They  are  already  pressing  the 
Government  for  the  concession,  and  neither  the  Liberal  nor  the 
Conservative  Party  has  yet  made  up  its  mind  to  a  refusal  of  such 
a  new  endowment  of  profiteering  in  what  will  presently  be  the  life- 
blood  of  modern  productive  industry.  The  Labour  Party  demands 
that  the  production  of  Electricity  on  the  necessary  gigantic  scale  shall 
be  made,  from  the  start  (with  suitable  arrangements  for  municipal 
co-operation  in  local  distribution),  a  national  enterprise,  to  be  worked 
exclusively  with  the  object  of  supplying  the  whole  kingdom  with  the 
cheapest  possible  Power,  Light,  and  Heat. 

But  with  the  Railways  and  the  generation  of  Electricity  in  the  hands 
of  the  public,  it  would  be  criminal  folly  to  leave  to  the  present 
1,500  colliery  companies  the  power  of  "holding  up"  the  coal  supply. 


APPENDIX  II  121 

These  are  now  all  working  under  public  control,  on  terms  that  virtu- 
ally afford  to  their  shareholders  a  statutory  guarantee  of  their 
swollen  incomes.  The  Labour  Party  demands  the  immediate 
Nationalisation  of  Mines,  the  extraction  of  coal  and  iron  being 
worked  as  a  public  service  (with  a  steadily  increasing  participation 
in  the  management,  both  central  and  local,  of  the  various  grades  of 
persons  employed) ;  and  the  whole  business  of  the  retail  distribution 
of  household  coal  being  undertaken,  as  a  local  public  service,  by  the 
elected  Municipal  or  County  Councils.  And  there  is  no  reason  why 
coal  should  fluctuate  in  price  any  more  than  railway  fares,  or  why 
the  consumer  should  be  made  to  pay  more  in  winter  than  in  summer, 
or  in  one  town  than  another.  What  the  Labour  Party  would  aim 
at  is,  for  household  coal  of  standard  quality,  a  fixed  and  uniform 
price  for  the  whole  kingdom,  payable  by  rich  and  poor  alike,  as 
imalterable  as  the  penny  postage  stamp. 

But  tlie  sphere  of  immediate  Nationalisation  is  not  restricted  to 
these  great  industries.  We  shall  never  succeed  in  putting  the 
gigantic  system  of  Health  Insurance  on  a  proper  footing,  or  secure 
a  clear  field  for  the  beneficent  work  of  the  Friendly  Societies,  or 
gain  a  free  hand  for  the  necessary  development  of  the  urgently 
called  for  Ministry  of  Health  and  the  Local  Public  Health  Service, 
until  the  nation  expropriates  the  profit-making  Industrial  Insurance 
Companies,  which  now  so  tyrannously  exploit  the  people  with  their 
wasteful  house-to-house  Industrial  Life  Assurance.  Only  by  such 
an  expropriation  of  Life  Assurance  Companies  can  we  secure  the 
universal  provision,  free  from  the  burdensome  toll  of  weekly  pence, 
of  the  indispensable  Fvmeral  Benefit.  Nor  is  it  in  any  sense  a  "class" 
measure.  Only  by  the  assumption  by  a  State  Department  of  the 
whole  business  of  Life  Assurance  can  the  millions  of  policy  holders 
of  all  classes  be  completely  protected  against  the  possibly  calamitous 
results  of  the  depreciation  of  securities  and  suspension  of  bonuses 
which  the  war  is  causing.  Only  by  this  means  can  the  great  staff  of 
insurance  agents  find  their  proper  place  as  Civil  Servants,  with 
equitable  conditions  of  employment,  compensation  for  any  disturb- 
ance and  security  of  tenure,  in  a  nationally  organised  public  service 
for  tlie  discharge  of  the  steadily  increasing  functions  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  Vital  Statistics  and  Social  Insurance. 

In  quite  another  sphere  the  Labour  Party  sees  the  key  to  Temper- 
ance Reform  in  taking  the  entire  manufacture  and  retailing  of 
alcoholic  drink  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  find  profit  in  promoting 
the  utmost  possible  consumption.  This  is  essentially  a  case  in  which 
the  people,  as  a  whole,  must  assert  its  right  to  full  and  imfettered 
power  for  dealing  with  the  licensing  question  in  accordance  with 
local  opinion.  For  this  purpose,  localities  should  have  conferred 
upon  them  facilities 

(o)  To  prohibit  the  sale  of  liquor  within  their  boundaries; 

(&)  To  reduce  the  number  of  licences  and  regulate  the  conditions 
imder  which  they  may  be  held;  and 

(c)  If  a  locality  decides  that  licences  are  to  be  granted,  to  deter- 
mine whether  such  licences  shall  be  imder  private  or  any 
form  of  public  control. 


122  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

MUNICIPALISATION 

Other  main  industries,  especially  those  now  becoming  monopo- 
lised, should  be  nationalised  as  opportunity  offers.  Moreover,  the 
Labour  Party  holds  that  the  Municipalities  should  not  confine  their 
activities  to  tlie  necessarily  costly  services  of  Education,  Sanita- 
tion and  Police;  nor  yet  rest  content  with  acquiring  control  of  the 
local  Water,  Gas,  Electricity,  and  Tramways;  but  that  every  facility 
should  be  afforded  to  them  to  acquire  (easily,  quickly  and  cheaply) 
all  the  land  they  require,  and  to  extend  their  enterprises  in  Housing 
and  Town  Planning,  Parks,  and  Public  Libraries,  the  provision  of 
music  and  the  organisation  of  recreation;  and  also  to  undertake, 
besides  the  retailing  of  coal,  other  services  of  common  utility,  par- 
ticularly the  local  supply  of  milk,  wherever  this  is  not  already  fully 
and  satisfactorily  organised  by  a  Co-operative  Society. 

Control  of  Capitalist  Industry 

Meanwhile,  however,  we  ought  not  to  throw  away  the  valuable 
experience  now  gained  by  the  Government  in  its  assumption  of  the 
importation  of  wheat,  wool,  metals,  and  other  commodities,  and  in 
its  control  of  the  shipping,  woollen,  leather,  clothing,  boot  and  shoe, 
milling,  baking,  butchering,  and  other  industries.  The  Labour 
Party  holds  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  shortcomings  of 
this  Government  importation  and  control,  it  has  demonstrably 
prevented  a  lot  of  "profiteering."  Nor  can  it  end  immediately  on 
the  Declaration  of  Peace.  The  people  will  be  extremely  foolish  if 
they  ever  allow  their  indispensable  industries  to  slip  back  into  the 
unfettered  control  of  private  capitalists,  who  are,  actually  at  the 
instance  of  the  Government  itself,  now  rapidly  combining,  trade  by 
trade,  into  monopolist  Trusts,  which  may  presently  become  as  ruth- 
less in  their  extortion  as  the  worst  American  examples.  Standing 
as  it  does  for  the  Democratic  Control  of  Industry,  the  Labour  Party 
would  think  twice  before  it  sanctioned  any  abandonment  of  the 
present  profitable  centralisation  of  purchase  of  raw  materials;  of 
the  present  carefully  organised  "rationing,"  by  joint  committees  of  the 
trades  concerned,  of  the  several  establishments  with  the  materials 
they  require;  of  the  present  elaborate  system  of  "costing"  and 
public  audit  of  manufacturers'  accounts,  so  as  to  stop  the  waste 
heretofore  caused  by  the  mechanical  inefficiency  of  the  more  back- 
ward firms;  of  the  present  salutary  publicity  of  manufacturing 
processes  and  expenses  thereby  ensured;  and,  on  the  information 
thus  obtained  (in  order  never  again  to  revert  to  the  old-time 
profiteering)  of  the  present  rigid  fixing,  for  standardised  products, 
of  maximum  prices  at  the  factory,  at  the  warehouse  of  the  whole- 
sale trader  and  in  the  retail  shop.  This  question  of  the  retail 
prices  of  household  commodities  is  emphatically  the  most  practical  of 
all  political  issues  to  the  woman  elector.  The  male  politicians  have 
too  long  neglected  the  grievances  of  the  small  household,  which  is 
the  prey  of  every  profiteerhig  combination ;  and  neither  the  Liberal 
nor  the  Conservative  party  promises,  in  tliis  respect,  any  amendment. 


APPENDIX  II  123 

This,  too,  is  in  no  sense  a  "class"  measure.  It  is,  so  the  Labour 
Party  holds,  just  as  much  the  function  of  Government,  and  just  as 
necessary  a  part  of  the  Democratic  Regulation  of  Industry,  to  safe- 
guard the  interests  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  those  of  all 
grades  and  sections  of  private  consumers,  in  the  matter  of  prices, 
as  it  is,  by  the  Factory  and  Trade  Boards  Acts,  to  protect  the  rights 
of  the  wage-earning  producers  in  the  matter  of  wages,  hours  of 
labour,  and  sanitation. 

A  REVOLUTION  IN  NATIONAL  FINANCE 

In  taxation,  also,  the  interests  of  the  professional  and  house- 
keeping classes  are  at  one  with  those  of  the  manual  workers.  Too 
long  has  our  National  Finance  been  regulated,  contrary  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Political  Economy,  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  possessing 
classes  and  the  profits  of  the  financiers.  The  colossal  expenditure 
involved  in  the  present  war  (of  which,  against  the  protest  of  the 
Labour  Party,  only  a  quarter  has  been  raised  by  taxation,  whilst 
three-quarters  have  been  borrowed  at  onerous  rates  of  interest,  to 
be  a  burden  on  the  nation's  future)  brings  things  to  a  crisis.  When 
peace  comes,  capital  will  be  needed  for  all  sorts  of  social  enterprises, 
and  the  resources  of  Government  will  necessarily  have  to  be  vastly 
greater  than  they  were  before  the  war.  Meanwhile  innumerable  new 
private  fortunes  are  being  heaped  up  by  those  who  take  advantage 
of  the  nation's  need;  and  the  one-tenth  of  the  population  which 
owns  nine-tenths  of  the  riches  of  the  United  Kingdom,  far  from 
being  made  poorer,  will  find  itself,  in  the  aggregate,  as  a  result  of 
the  war,  drawing  in  rent  and  interest  and  dividends  a  larger  nominal 
income  than  ever  before.  Such  a  position  demands  a  revolution  in 
national  finance.  How  are  we  to  discharge  a  public  debt  that  may 
well  reach  the  almost  incredible  figure  of  7,000  million  poimds 
sterling,  and  at  the  same  time  raise  an  annual  revenue  which,  for 
local  as  well  as  central  government,  must  probably  reach  1,000 
millions  a  year?  It  is  over  this  burden  of  taxation  that  the  various 
political  parties  will  be  found  to  be  most  sliarply  divided. 

The  Labour  Party  stands  for  such  a  system  of  taxation  as  will 
yield  all  the  necessary  revenue  to  the  Government  without  encroach- 
ing on  the  Prescribed  National  Minimum  Standard  of  Life  of  any 
family  whatsoever;  without  hampering  production  or  discouraging 
any  useful  personal  effort,  and  with  the  nearest  possible  approxima- 
tion to  equality  of  sacrifice.  We  definitely  repudiate  all  proposals 
for  a  Protective  Tariff,  in  whatever  specious  guise  they  may  be 
cloaked,  as  a  device  for  burdening  the  consumer  with  unnecessarily 
enhanced  prices,  to  the  profit  of  the  capitalist  employer  or  landed 
proprietor,  who  avowedly  expects  his  profits  or  rent  to  be  increased 
thereby.  We  shall  strenuously  oppose  any  taxation,  of  whatever 
kind,  which  would  increase  the  price  of  food  or  of  any  other 
necessary  of  life.  We  hold  that  indirect  taxation  on  commodities, 
whether  by  Customs  or  Excise,  should  be  strictly  limited  to  luxuries; 
and  concentrated  principally  on  those  of  which  it  is  socially  desirable 


124  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

that  the  consumption  should  be  actually  discouraged.  We  are  at 
one  with  the  manufacturer,  the  farmer  and  the  trader  in  objecting 
to  taxes  interfering  with  production  or  commerce,  or  hampering 
transport  and  communications.  In  all  these  matters — once  more  in 
contrast  with  the  other  political  parties,  and  by  no  means  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  wage-earners  alone — the  Labour  Party  demands  that 
the  very  definite  teachings  of  economic  science  should  no  longer  be 
disregarded. 

For  the  raising  of  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue  now  required 
the  Labour  Party  looks  to  the  direct  taxation  of  the  incomes  above 
the  necessary  cost  of  family  maintenance;  and  for  the  requisite  effort 
to  pay  off  the  National  Debt,  to  the  direct  taxation  of  private 
fortunes  both  during  life  and  at  death.  The  Income  Tax  and  Super- 
tax ought  at  once  to  be  thoroughly  reformed  in  assessment  and 
collection,  in  abatements  and  allowances,  and  in  graduation  and 
differentiation,  so  as  to  levy  the  required  total  sum  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  the  real  sacrifice  of  all  the  taxpayers  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible equal.  This  would  involve  assessment  by  families  instead  of 
by  individual  persons,  so  that  the  burden  is  alleviated  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  persons  to  be  maintained.  It  would  involve  the 
raising  of  the  present  unduly  low  minimum  income  assessable  to  the 
tax,  and  the  lightening  of  the  present  unfair  burden  on  the  great 
mass  of  professional  and  small  trading  classes  by  a  new  scale  of 
graduation,  rising  from  a  penny  in  the  pound  on  the  smallest  assess- 
able income  up  to  sixteen  or  even  nineteen  shillings  in  the  pound  on 
the  highest  income  of  the  millionaires.  It  would  involve  bringing 
into  assessment  the  numerous  windfalls  of  profit  that  now  escape, 
and  a  fvirther  differentiation  between  essentially  different  kinds  of 
income.  The  Excess  Profits  Tax  might  well  be  retained  in  an  ap- 
propriate form;  while  so  long  as  Mining  Royalties  exist  the  Mineral 
Rights  Duty  ought  to  be  increased.  The  steadily  rising  unearned 
Increment  of  urban  and  mineral  land  ought,  by  an  appropriate  direct 
Taxation  of  Land  Values,  to  be  wholly  brought  into  the  Public 
Exchequer.  At  the  same  time,  for  the  service  and  redemption  of 
the  National  Debt,  the  Death  Duties  ought  to  be  regraduated,  much 
more  strictly  collected,  and  greatly  increased.  In  this  matter  we 
need,  in  fact,  completely  to  reverse  our  point  of  view,  and  to  re- 
arrange the  whole  taxation  of  inheritance  from  the  standpoint  of 
asking  what  is  the  maximum  amount  that  any  rich  man  should  be 
permitted  at  death  to  divert,  by  his  will,  from  the  National  Exchequer, 
which  should  normally  be  the  heir  to  all  private  riches  in  excess  of 
a  quite  moderate  amount  by  way  of  family  provision.  But  all  this 
will  not  suffice.  It  will  be  imperative  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment to  free  the  nation  from  at  any  rate  the  greater  part  of  its  new 
load  of  interest-bearing  debts  for  loans  which  ought  to  have  been 
levied  as  taxation;  and  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  a  special  Capi- 
tal Levy  to  pay  off,  if  not  the  whole,  a  very  substantial  part  of  the 
entire  National  Debt — a  Capital  Levy  chargable  like  the  Death 
Duties  on  all  property,  but  (in  order  to  secure  approximate  equality 
of  sacrifice)  with  exemption  of  the  smallest  savings,  and  for  the  rest 


APPENDIX  II  125 

at  rates  very  steeply  graduated,  so  as  to  take  only  a  small  contribu- 
tion from  tlae  little  people  and  a  very  much  larger  percentage  from 
the  millionaires. 

Over  this  issue  of  how  the  financial  burden  of  the  war  is  to  be 
borne,  and  how  the  necessary  revenue  is  to  be  raised,  the  greatest 
political  battles  will  be  fought.  In  this  matter  the  Labour  Party 
claims  the  support  of  four-fifths  of  the  whole  nation,  for  the  interests 
of  the  clerk,  the  teacher,  the  doctor,  the  minister  of  religion,  the 
average  retail  shopkeeper  and  trader,  and  all  the  mass  of  those  living 
on  small  incomes  are  identical  with  those  of  the  artisan.  The  land- 
lords, the  financial  magnates,  the  possessors  of  great  fortunes  will 
not,  as  a  class,  willingly  forego  the  relative  immunity  that  they  have 
hitherto  enjoyed.  The  present  unfair  subjection  of  the  Co-opera- 
tive Society  to  an  Excess  Profits  Tax  on  the  "profits"  which  it  has 
never  made — specially  dangerous  as  "the  thin  end  of  the  wedge" 
of  penal  taxation  of  this  laudable  form  of  Democratic  enterprise — 
will  not  be  abandoned  without  a  struggle.  Every  possible  effort 
will  be  made  to  juggle  with  the  taxes,  so  as  to  place  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  mass  of  labouring  folk  and  upon  the  struggling 
households  of  the  professional  men  and  small  traders  (as  was  done 
after  every  previous  war) — whether  by  Customs  or  Excise  Duties, 
by  industrial  monopolies,  by  imnecessarily  high  rates  of  postage  and 
railway  fares,  or  by  a  thousand  and  one  otlier  ingenious  devices — 
an  imfair  share  of  the  national  burden.  Against  these  efforts  the 
Labour  Party  will  take  the  firmest  stand. 

THE  SURPLUS  FOR  THE  COMMON  GOOD 

In  the  disposal  of  the  surplus  above  the  Standard  of  Life  society 
has  hitherto  gone  as  far  wrong  as  in  its  neglect  to  secure  the  neces- 
sary basis  of  any  genuine  industrial  efficiency  or  decent  social  order. 
We  have  allowed  the  riches  of  oiu-  mines,  the  rental  value  of  the 
lands  superior  to  the  margin  of  cultivation,  the  extra  profits  of  the 
fortunate  capitalists,  even  tlie  material  outcome  of  scientific  dis- 
coveries— which  ought  by  now  to  have  made  this  Britain  of  ours 
immune  from  class  poverty  or  from  any  widespread  destitution — to 
be  absorbed  by  individual  proprietors;  and  then  devoted  very  largely 
to  the  senseless  luxury  of  an  idle  rich  class.  Against  this  misappro- 
priation of  the  wealth  of  the  community,  the  Labour  Party — speak- 
ing in  the  interests  not  of  the  wage-earners  alone,  but  of  every 
grade  and  section  of  producers  by  hand  or  by  brain,  not  to  mention 
also  those  of  the  generations  that  are  to  succeed  us,  and  of  the 
permanent  welfare  of  the  community — emphatically  protests.  One 
main  Pillar  of  the  House  that  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  build  is 
the  future  appropriation  of  the  Surplus,  not  to  the  enlargement  of 
any  individual  fortune,  but  to  the  Common  Good.  It  is  from  this 
constantly  arising  Surplus  (to  be  secured,  on  the  one  hand,  by 
Nationalisation  and  Municipalisation  and,  on  the  other,  by  the 
steeply  graduated  Taxation  of  Private  Income  and  Riches)  that  will 
have  to  be  foimd  the  new  capital  which  the  community  day  by  day 


126  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

needs  for  the  perpetual  improvement  and  increase  of  its  various  en- 
terprises, for  which  we  shall  decline  to  be  dependent  on  the  usury- 
exacting  financiers.  It  is  from  the  same  source  that  has  to  be  de- 
frayed the  public  provision  for  the  Sick  and  Infirm  of  all  kuids 
(including  that  for  Maternity  and  Infancy)  which  is  still  so  scanda- 
lously insufficient;  for  the  Aged  and  those  prematurely  incapacitated 
by  accident  or  disease,  now  in  many  ways  so  imperfectly  cared  for; 
for  the  Education  alike  of  children,  of  adolescents  and  of  adults, 
in  which  the  Labour  Party  demands  a  genuine  equality  of  oppor- 
tiinity,  overcoming  all  differences  of  material  circumstances;  and  for 
the  organisation  of  public  improvements  of  all  kinds,  including  the 
brightening  of  the  lives  of  those  now  condemned  to  almost  ceaseless 
toil,  and  a  great  development  of  the  means  of  recreation.  From  the 
same  source  must  come  the  greatly  increased  public  provision  that 
the  Labour  Party  will  insist  on  being  made  for  scientific  investiga- 
tion and  original  research,  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  not  to  say 
also  for  the  promotion  of  music,  literature  and  fine  art,  which 
have  been  under  Capitalism  so  greatly  neglected,  and  upon  which, 
so  the  Labour  party  holds,  any  real  development  of  civilisation  fun- 
damentally depends.  Society,  like  the  individual,  does  not  live  by 
bread  alone — does  not  exist  only  for  perpetual  wealth  production. 
It  is  in  the  proposal  for  this  ajjpropriation  of  every  surplus  for  the 
Common  Good — in  the  vision  of  its  resolute  use  for  the  building  up 
of  the  community  as  a  whole  instead  of  for  the  magnification  of  in- 
dividual fortimes — that  the  Labour  Party,  as  the  Party  of  the  Pro- 
ducers by  hand  or  by  brain,  most  distinctively  marks  itself  off  from 
the  older  political  parties,  standing,  as  these  do  essentially  for  the 
maintenance,  unimpaired  of  the  perpetual  private  mortgage  upon  the 
annual  product  of  the  nation  that  is  involved  in  the  individual  owner- 
ship of  land  and  capital. 

THE  STREET  OF  TO-MORROW 

The  House  which  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  build,  the  four 
Pillars  of  which  have  now  been  described,  does  not  stand  alone  in 
the  world.  Where  will  it  be  in  the  Street  of  To-morrow?  If  we 
repudiate,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Imperialism  that  seeks  to  dominate 
other  races,  or  to  impose  our  own  will  on  other  parts  of  the  British 
Empire,  so  we  disclaim  equally  any  conception  of  a  selfish  and  in- 
sular "non-interventionism"  unregarding  of  our  special  obligations 
to  our  fellow-citizens  overseas;  of  the  corporate  duties  of  one  nation 
to  another;  of  the  moral  claims  upon  us  of  the  non-adult  races,  and 
of  our  own  indebtedness  to  the  world  of  which  we  are  part.  We 
look  for  an  ever-increasing  intercourse,  a  constantly  developing  ex- 
change of  commodities,  a  steadily  growing  mutual  understanding,  and 
a  continually  expanding  friendly  co-operation  among  all  the  peoples 
of  the  world.  With  regard  to  that  great  Commonwealth  of  all 
races,  all  colours,  all  religions  and  all  degrees  of  .civilisation,  that 
we  call  the  British  Empire,  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  its  main- 
tenance and  its  progressive  development  on  the  lines  of  Local  Au- 


APPENDIX  II  127 

tonomy  and  "Home  Rule  All  Round" ;  the  fullest  respect  for  the  rights 
of  each  people,  whatever  its  colour,  to  all  the  Democratic  Self-Gov- 
crnment  of  which  it  is  capable,  and  to  the  proceeds  of  its  own  toil 
upon  the  resources  of  its  own  territorial  home;  and  the  closest  pos- 
sible co-operation  among  all  the  various  members  of  what  has  be- 
come essentially  not  an  Empire  in  the  old  sense,  but  a  Britannic  Al- 
liance. We  desire  to  maintain  tlie  most  intimate  relations  with  the 
Labour  Parties  overseas.  Like  them,  we  have  no  sympathy  with 
the  projects  of  "Imperial  Federation,"  in  so  far  as  tliese  imply 
the  subjection  to  a  common  Imperial  Legislature  wielding  coercive 
power  (including  dangerous  facilities  for  coercive  Imperial  taxation 
and  for  enforced  military  service),  either  of  the  existing  Self-Gov- 
erning  Dominions,  whose  autonomy  would  be  thereby  invaded;  or 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  whose  freedom  of  Democratic  Self-develop- 
ment would  be  thereby  hampered;  or  of  India  and  the  Colonial  De- 
pendencies, which  would  thereby  run  the  risk  of  being  further  ex- 
ploited for  the  benefit  of  a  "White  Empire."  We  do  not  intend,  by 
any  such  "Imperial  Senate,"  either  to  bring  the  plutocracy  of  Can- 
ada and  South  Africa  to  the  aid  of  tlie  British  aristocracy  or  to  en- 
able the  landlords  and  financiers  of  the  Motlier  Country  to  unite  in 
controlling  the  growing  Popular  Democracies  overseas.  The  absolute 
autonomy  of  each  self-governing  part  of  the  Empire  must  be  main- 
tained intact.  What  we  look  for,  besides  a  constant  progress  in 
Democratic  Self-Government  of  every  part  of  the  Britannic  Alliance, 
and  especially  in  India,  is  a  continuous  participation  of  the  Min- 
isters of  the  Dominions  of  India,  and  eventually  of  other  Dependencies 
(perhaps  by  means  of  their  own  Ministers  specially  resident  in  Lon- 
don for  this  purpose)  in  the  most  confidential  deliberations  of  the 
Cabinet,  so  far  as  Foreign  Policy  and  Imperial  Affairs  are  concerned; 
and  the  annual  assembly  of  an  Imperial  Council,  representing  all 
constituents  of  the  Britannic  Alliance  and  all  parties  in  their  Local 
Legislatures,  which  should  discuss  all  matters  of  common  interest, 
but  only  in  order  to  make  recommendations  for  the  simultaneous  con- 
sideration of  the  various  autonomous  local  legislatures  of  what 
should  increasingly  take  the  constitutional  form  of  an  Alliance  of 
Free  Nations.  And  we  carry  the  idea  further.  As  regards  our  re- 
lations to  Foreign  Countries,  we  disavow  and  disclaim  any  desire 
or  intention  to  dispossess  or  to  impoverish  any  other  State  or  Na- 
tion. We  seek  no  increase  of  territory.  We  disclaim  all  idea  of 
"economic  war."  We  ourselves  object  to  all  Protective  Customs 
Tariffs;  but  we  hold  that  each  nation  must  be  left  free  to  do  what 
it  thinks  best  for  its  own  economic  development,  without  thought  of 
injuring  others.  We  believe  that  nations  are  in  no  way  damaged  by 
each  other's  economic  prosperity  or  commercial  progress;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  are  actually  themselves  mutually  enriched  thereby. 
We  would  therefore  put  an  end  to  the  old  entanglements  and  mys- 
tifications of  Secret  Diplomacy  and  the  formation  of  Leagues  against 
Leagues.  We  stand  for  the  immediate  establishment,  actually  as  a 
part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  which  the  present  war  will  end, 
of  a  Universal  League  or  Societv  of  Nations,  a  Supernational   Au- 


128  THE  AIMS  OF  LABOUR 

thority,  with  an  International  High  Court  to  try  all  justiciable  issues 
between  nations;  an  International  Legislature  to  enact  such  common 
laws  as  can  be  mutually  agreed  upon,  and  an  International  Council  of 
Mediation  to  endeavour  to  settle  without  ultimate  conflict  even  those 
disputes  which  are  not  justiciable.  We  would  have  all  the  nations 
of  the  world  most  solemnly  undertake  and  promise  to  make  a  com- 
mon cause  against  any  one  of  them  that  broke  away  from  this  funda- 
mental agreement.  The  world  has  suffered  too  much  from  war  for  the 
Labour  Pai-ty  to  have  any  other  policy  than  that  of  lasting  Peace. 

MORE  LIGHT— BUT  ALSO  MORE  WARMTH! 

The  Labour  Party  is  far  from  assuming  that  it  possesses  a  key  to 
open  all  locks;  or  that  any  policy  which  it  can  formulate  will  solve 
all  the  problems  that  beset  us.  But  we  deem  it  important  to  our- 
selves as  well  as  to  those  who  may,  on  the  one  hand,  wish  to  join 
the  Party,  or,  on  the  other,  to  take  up  arms  against  it,  to  make  quite 
clear  and  definite  our  aim  and  purpose.  The  Labour  Party  wants 
that  aim  and  purpose,  as  set  forth  in  the  preceding  pages,  with  all 
its  might.  It  calls  for  more  warmth  in  politics,  for  much  less 
apathetic  acquiescence  in  the  miseries  that  exist,  for  none  of  the 
cynicism  that  saps  the  life  of  leisure.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Labour 
Party  has  no  belief  in  any  of  the  problems  of  the  world  being 
solved  by  Good  Will  alone.  Good  Will  without  knowledge  is  Warmth 
without  Light.  Especially  in  all  the  complexities  of  politics,  in  the 
still  imdeveloped  Science  of  Society,  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  in- 
creased study,  for  the  scientific  investigation  of  each  succeeding  prob- 
lem, for  the  deliberate  organisation  of  research,  and  for  a  much  more 
rapid  dissemination  among  the  whole  people  of  all  the  science  that 
exists.  And  it  is  perhaps  specially  the  Labour  Party  that  has  the 
duty  of  placing  this  Advancement  of  science  in  the  forefront  of 
its  political  programme.  What  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  in  all 
fields  of  life  is,  essentially,  Democratic  Co-operation;  and  Co-opera- 
tion involves  a  common  pvu^pose  which  can  be  agreed  to;  a  common 
plan  which  can  be  explained  and  discussed,  and  such  a  measure  of 
success  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  as  will  ensure  a  common 
satisfaction.  An  autocratic  Sultan  may  govern  without  science  if  his 
whim  is  law.  A  Plutocratic  Party  may  choose  to  ignore  science,  if  it 
is  heedless  whether  its  pretended  solutions  of  social  problems  that 
may  win  political  triumphs  ultimately  succeed  or  fail.  But  no  La- 
bour Party  can  hope  to  maintain  its  position  unless  its  proposals  are, 
in  fact,  the  outcome  of  the  best  Political  Science  of  its  time;  or  to 
fulfil  its  purpose  unless  that  science  is  continually  wresting  new  fields 
from  human  ignorance.  Hence,  although  the  purpose  of  the  Labour 
Party  must,  by  the  law  of  its  being,  remain  for  all  time  xmchanged, 
its  Policy  and  its  Programme  will,  we  hope,  undergo  a  perpetual 
development,  as  knowledge  grows,  and  as  new  phases  of  the  social 
problem  present  themselves,  in  a  continually  finer  adjustment  of  our 
measiu-es  to  our  ends.  If  Law  is  the  Mother  of  Freedom,  Science, 
to  the  Labour  Party,  must  be  the  Parent  of  Law. 


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